


Death Never Dies

by NoCoincidence



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Aspects Keep Their Powers, Canon Divergence, Gen, WoD and Anything After Never Happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-09-22 17:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 229,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9618200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoCoincidence/pseuds/NoCoincidence
Summary: One does not simply kill the Old God of Death. Now, it has reincarnated itself...





	1. Prologue: Three Lights in the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> So I posted this over on FF.net. Someone suggested I post it to this 'Ao3'. So... here I am, I guess.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Ellemayne

"Hoohahahahahahaha, AAAAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahaha!"

With that laugh, that pounding, deafening laugh that burst her eardrums and filled her mind, the visage of the horrific Old God became too much for Ellemayne to bear, as if she were staring into the sun. She pointed her gun away and turned her head, eyes stinging and mind throbbing. Everyone else in her guild did the same, forced to face away from the monster, but even after turning away she felt like ants were crawling in her brain.

Turning away from Yogg-Saron brought Ellemayne face to face with the towering faceless defending it. A tall, gurgling creatures with pallid grey, scaly skin, a long trunk for a nose, a thin tentacle for a left arm and a mass of three thick tentacles for a bludgeon-like right arm. It wore a simple loincloth with two sharp tusks jutting out from the waist, spiked pauldrons, and a leather band inlaid with teal runes on both its whip-like left arm and above the left knee.

Despite the exhaustion tearing at her limbs, despite the residual feelings of illness and apathy that spells couldn't _quite_ cleanse, Ellemayne lifted her Titan-make gun at the faceless five times her size and fired. The rest of her guild lashed out at it with blades and arrows, fire and shadow. Every wound it received instantly healed over but made the monstrosity shrink, until it was slightly shorter than the human death knight it fought. Lightning crackled, and a bolt of Titan magic blasted the life from it. At the same time, the sensation of shadow magic burning against her back faded and Ellemayne whipped around to once again face the head of Yogg-Saron.

Even with the power of three Watchers making her taller and stronger, Yogg-Saron's head alone was the size of a fucking dragon. The top of its fish-like head was covered in dark, armored plates, and dreadlocks sank down into the pool of liquid saronite it had risen from. Its maw was blue-green and filled with gruesome fangs twice the size of a tauren, pointing in all directions. Where there should have been eyes were just more mouths, large enough to swallow the night elf twice over and filled with more of those gibbering fangs. To the sides of the Old God were glowing saronite-colored pustules, leaking green slime into the saronite pool, and in the middle of its upper 'lip' were two fangs arranged like buck teeth over the rest, no bigger than normal.

It leathery skin was blackened and burned here and there from the barrage of spells they had already brought to bear. Purple streaks of the warlock spell to drain souls wound outwards from it, and it had several gaping holes where Ellemayne and Rom had shot it. Most of her bullets were aimed down its gaping throat as it rose and fell within the pool of its own blood.

With the spell faded, Ellemayne took the opportunity to lay into it. Her trigger finger ached with use and her ammo pack was dangerously light, but as time passed Yogg-Saron moved slower and slower within the pool. The quakes of its body moving beneath the surface, cracking the ground, were weakening.

There was a _whoosh._ The dozens of projectiles fired at the Old God picked up speed as it inhaled, opening its mouth far wider than it had any right to. One of the smaller maws spoke while all the others opened wide.

"Eternal suffering awaits!"

The familiar glow of holy magic washed over her, a fraction of a second before the air Yogg-Saron had inhaled was sent out as a roar, a visible shockwave _bursting_ out from the Old God and knocking her flat on her ass, tinitus ringing in her ears. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw a flash of arcane light that heralded another towering, faceless guardian.

"Damn it," she whispered under her breath. Getting back up, Ellemayne positioned herself between it and Alex and fired at it. It looked her way, then past her at the death knight.

"Yeah!" he shouted and brandished his sword. "Come and get it!" The faceless charged at him to be taken apart by their melee, and Ellemayne focused back on the Old God, aiming a shot right down its gullet...

"Hoohahahahahahaha, AAAAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahaha!"

Immediately pain flared to life in her mind and she forced herself to turn so the shadow magic would instead lap like fire at her back; she would've had to have been a lunatic to willingly gaze upon it during that _horrible_ spell.

The fight continued. Yogg-Saron, despite slowly weakening, did not relent for an instant, nor did the flow of faceless minions abate. Roars kept bursting her eardrums and shadow spells lashed at her consciousness. Now and again one of the faceless started to flash purple mere seconds before Thorim throttled it with lightning, or they held out their triple-tentacled right arm and began to undulate, drawing thick green strands of life into themselves to grow larger and larger. Ellemayne's breaths came in short, ragged bursts as she fought through the pain and suffering to keep firing at the Old God; the palpable aura of its magic, feeling like wet clay on her skin, was growing stronger and stronger, threatening to extinguish their lives at any second.

All her friends stood beside her. Soronori Flamecaller, the blood elf blasting the Old God with fireballs from both hands. Turaniles, carving through the faceless with the blade Thunderfury. Rom, shooting magical arrows from Thori'dal. Aruen, the paladin resting beneath one of Freya's green beams of light in order to heal his mind.

The dark energies beneath the ground grew stronger and stronger; Ellemayne swore she could see purple light seeping up from the cracks in the stone. She kept firing at Yogg-Saron, littering the monster with bullet wounds. She held her ground as the next surge of sinister energy burst forth, fighting through the darkness to keep looking at the Old God, to keep firing. Then...

The two faceless, one much larger than the other, collapsed like puppets with their strings cut. Yogg-Saron sunk ever so slightly and spoke, its voice pounding in her mind like an edict from Elune. "Your fate is sealed! The end of days is finally upon you, and all who inhabit this miserable little seedling!" It opened its mouth again, far too wide, and then collapsed limply, impaling itself with its own fangs. "Uulwi ifis halahs gag erh'ongg w'ssh!" Then it was over, the dark magic seeping from the cracks fading. Ellemayne put her gun down and shook her head, trying to clear the red fog from the corner of her vision.

"A-Alright everyone!" Turaniles shouted. "Get under a well, right now!"

Ellemayne narrowed her eyes at the other night elf. Who was she to tell her what to do? Ellemayne was the one who took down the Old God, and _she_ was just the lazy little warrior who sat around all day, waving a glorified stick, poking at the mooks and she had the _nerve to tell her WHAT TO DO?! SHE SHOULD TAKE HER THUNDERFURY AND RAM IT SO FAR UP HER ASS-_

A heavy, plated hand came to rest on her shoulder, and she turned to look at Aruen. He shook his head. "Come on, let's get you under," the draenei stated.

Weakly, Ellemayne nodded, her anger flowing out to be replaced by sheer pain. "R-Right, right," she whispered, letting him lead her with his powerful muscles to the sanity well. The moment she was under the green light her legs gave out from under her, only for Aruen to catch her and lower her to the ground. "T-Thanks," she whispered as a series of warm waves rippled through her head. The ants in her brain vanished. "Oh wow. _Oh_ wow." She saw one of their priests levitating across the saronite pool to the Old God's corpse.

Soronori collapsed next to her. "I know, right?" The mage breathed out heavily. "By the sun, that was close."

"Yeah," she breathed, looking around the Prison of Yogg-Saron. The ethereal Titan chains laid in ruin. The ground was split and cracked, giving way to the pool of saronite in the middle. The area was littered with the corpses of faceless and with craters where they'd played frantic whack-a-mole with the Old God's tentacles. The three Watchers had, with the Old God defeated, teleported up out of the prison. Brann was bringing the Alpha Reply Code to Dalaran via portal, the Old God of death was slain...

... it had been a good day.

Their guild piled under the sanity wells, a dozen under each, some of them sobbing uncontrollably from the effects of Yogg-Saron's vicious spells. As they recovered, a shout came from the Old God. "EUGH!" The priest who had been levitating under the corpse came out, holding a mace of Titan construction in his rotten hands. "That was the most disgusting thing I've ever done," the forsaken said. "But I don't care. I've got Val'anyr."

A series of congratulations rose up. "Nice," Ellemayne whispered, laying about as the damage done to her mind was healed. Suddenly, a wall of gray fur arrived in the elf's lap, licking at her face. She lit up and wrapped her arms around the stormy gray mountain lion. "Fluffy!" He nuzzled into her neck, purring. "Who's a good boy? Did you rip out the faceless's throats? Yes you did!" She pulled back and ruffled his face. " _Yes you did!_ " she sang.

Ignoring the eye-rolls from the rest of her guild, Ellemayne kept spoiling Fluffy and congratulating him on viciously clawing the Old God's tentacles. After about half an hour, Turaniles strode out from the sanity well and faced both groups.

"Good work, everyone!" she said. "We've done real good here. That's two Old Gods down. Now, we're not out of the woods yet! We don't have to worry about the ground exploding with tentacles but the Lich King is still out there! Hearthstone out and meet up in Dalaran so we can figure out our plan of attack!" Her voice turned softer. "But seriously, _really_ well done. It's not easy keeping your heads straight around an Old God and you did it anyway. Be in Dalaran by this time next week, until then take some time to yourselves. After that though, no messing around! We've got a Lich King to kill!"

* * *

Nine Months Later

Alexander Smithers

Alex paced back and forth, worried. And why wouldn't he be worried? Any decent man would be worried. His fingers, calloused from long days of working at a forge, drummed anxiously against his legs. He was short of breath, and every now and then he waved his hat over his face like a fan to try and cool himself. He _so_ wished he could be with his wife, but the medics had brooked no argument. The worst part was that they were _right,_ he'd just take up space and makes things difficult in case of any complication, but damn it that was his wife in there, giving birth to his only child! They had no right keeping him out!

No right to, but they had the ability to. So he was resigned to the chapel foyer while his wife labored in the medical wing. It wasn't that he didn't trust the medics and priests, he'd grown up with most of them, but...!

He needed to distract himself. He looked around the chapel of Telaville. It was an impressive chapel, especially for a small town like they were, not even on the map of Hillsbrad. There was a high arching roof that was painted with various heroes of the Holy Light, the pews were glossy dark wood, the masonry was expert. It was lit and warmed by multitudes of candles scattered throughout, which so thoroughly drove back the winter chill that Alex had hung up his coat on the rack by the door. Near the front of the church were two doors that led to the business portions; training for followers of the Light and for practitioners of medicine. It also functioned as a delivery hospital, which he was locked out of.

He cursed. Distracting himself hadn't worked at all.

Deciding to get up, he began pacing the length of the chapel. His footsteps rang out and echoed in the large space, and his only company was an elderly maid washing the windows.

 _What a world,_ he thought to himself. Alex tried to imagine what Katie was going through. How much pain she was in, how the priests would try to comfort her, the way her gorgeous face would be red with stress and slick with sweat. He _really_ should've been in there with her, but his hands were tied.

The sun outside continued on its path, casting orange light and long shadows through the chapel as it sank under the horizon. Alex restlessly went from pacing, to sitting, to laying across the benches, back to pacing, to whistling, to full-on singing, to limp waiting, then back to pacing again. The maid left, leaving him completely alone.

The doors to the depths of the chapel opened, and he snapped his attention to them. A priestess came out, looking like she'd just grown up. She began walking over to him, so he met her halfway. "Mister Smithers, congratulations." His heart seemed to grow three sizes in his chest, and his stomach fell out. "It's a healthy baby girl. She's a fighter too; her lungs are fine but she didn't even cry when she came out."

She didn't? Alex was no doctor, but he was certain that if babies didn't cry on birth, something was seriously wrong with them. Then again, he wasn't a doctor. He swallowed the lump in his throat. "A girl? Can I go see _her?_ " he asked, his voice cracking near the end. He reached up and wiped his painfully hot eyes and sniffed.

The priestess smiled. "Of course, please follow me." She turned around and Alex followed after her. She opened the door and led him deeper into the chapel, past a few twists and turns, past libraries and meditating paladins, and to a cute little door. The priestess stopped and looked at him with big doe eyes. "Your wife's right through the door. Try to be quiet, though, your daughter's sleeping."

 _Your daughter,_ he repeated in his head. Alex opened the door inward and stepped in. Inside was a series of soft beds, a few trays filled with various medical potions, and soothing paintings lining the walls. But he only had eyes for one figure, resting on the bed.

Katherine was glowing. Her hair, red as the sunrise, was matted down with sweat and she had rings under her eyes. In spite of that though, she smiled widely at him, practically glowing. Her gown's top was partially undone, exposing a breast that was covered by a figure which she held as if her life depended on it. She looked at him. "Hey, Alex."

"H-Hey," he said, finding his way to an unoccupied bed and sitting on it, facing her. "It's... oh by the Light, it's happening." His throat was tight and dry. He swallowed, feeling the lump travel down his neck. His eyes were still itching.

"Come here," she urged quietly. "Say hello."

He did, standing and looming over the little baby wrapped up in blankets, nursing peacefully with wide brown eyes. At the moment she was bald, and looked at him curiously. "Hi there," he cooed. "Hi there, you cute little thing. I'm your... I'm your daddy." Alex closed his eyes and choked out a little laugh.

"Honey, are you crying?"

" _No!_ " he said in a high voice. He cleared his throat and wiped away the liquid near his eyes. "No, I'm not crying. A girl, right?"

Katie nodded. "Our little girl."

They'd already picked out the names for boy or girl. If it was a boy, they were going to call him Darrick. If it was a girl...

Alex sniffled. "Our little Sara."


	2. Chapter 1: The Perfect Little Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

Sara laid on her stomach in her bed, kicking her feet and humming. Her arms were propped up by her elbows and her chin rested in her hands. On her pillow was one of Daddy's books, open to a random page filled with tiny, itty bitty black squiggles. She knew they were words, she knew they were something people were supposed to 'read', but she didn't know how to read. Sara didn't really care, though; she just liked looking at the funny black squiggles.

"Hmm, hmmhmm, hmm hmm..." She flipped the page and looked at the next wall of text. She had _no_ idea what any of it meant besides the numbers, but that just made it all the more fun. A glance out the window of her little room confirmed that it was still dark outside, the only light coming from the candle on her table. Not morning yet, which made her sad. She wanted to go outside and play with the animals. She never got to play with the animals as much since they left Tellaville, and visits to the park were rare treats. Mommy and Daddy had never told her why they'd left, though. They just looked sad whenever she mentioned it.

Sara flipped to the next page. "Ooh," she said. This page had a _picture_ on it! It didn't mean anything to her, though. It was just a bunch of weird boxes and lines. There were a _few_ numbers though, but for some reason a lot of the numbers had a dot between them. Books were weird.

Once she was done with the picture she looked at the funny squiggles on the rest of the page, then flipped to the next one. Her legs got tired, so she stopped kicking them. Flip, flip flip, hmm hmm hmm.

She started whispering. "Flip flip flip, hmm hmhmmhmm, flip flip flip, hmm hmhmmhmm. _Flip_ flip flip..." A lock of brown hair fell in front of her face and she brushed it aside, focusing on the weird, random symbols.

There was a creak and the door began to open. Gasping, Sara pulled her covers over herself to try and hide the book since she was _supposed_ to be sleeping. There was the tap of shoes. "Sara, honey, what are you doing up this early?"

She didn't move. Maybe she could trick Mommy into thinking she was asleep?

The covers pulled away and the four year old whined. "Noooooo! Moooommy!"

Her mommy tilted her head and smirked. "Sara, how long have you been up?" She crossed her arms and refused to answer.

"I dunno," she said.

Mommy rolled her eyes and came closer. "Well come on Sara, back to bed, it's the middle of the night."

It was? Oh. That probably explained why her candle hadn't gone all melty. It wasn't as close to morning as she thought.

She pulled away the book and closed, smiling at her, and tucked her in. "Goodnight, Sara?"

"Goodnight, Mommy," she said testily as Mommy blew out the candle, leaving her in darkness.

"Now, get some sleep honey, we're going to the park tomorrow."

In the pitch black, Sara's face lit up. "Really? Can I bring my magnifying glass?"

Her mother paused. "Um, yes dear. Now go to sleep." There was the sound of feet on a wooden floor, and the click of her door closing.

Sara pouted. She didn't really like the day, it was too bright, _especially_ when it was sunny, but she at least could play with the animals! That was always fun. But first she had to go to sleep, which was stupid because she wasn't tired at _aaaall!_

She squirmed under the covers, but eventually she decided that she wasn't gonna get anything else done, then closed her eyes and went to sleepy time. Her head grew strange and light, fuzzy like fur, then the next thing she knew a big hand was shaking her.

"Sara, honey, time to get up," Daddy said.

"Ooooh," she said, getting up. "Okay." She wiggled out of the covers and dropped to the ground.

"Get dressed then come downstairs, your mother made pancakes."

Her face brightened up. Pancakes! She loved pancakes! She hurried to her dresser and put on a long earth-brown dress, a shirt of the same color, some socks, and then her nice dark brown shoes and hurried out the door as fast as her feet could carry her. Rounding the corner, Sara slowed down on the stairs so she wouldn't trip and hurt herself. When she reached the bottom she found the kitchen easily. She breathed in and let out an exaggerated 'aah' at the smell.

The kitchen wasn't that nice looking, it was painted with ugly pinks and yellows. But the pancakes smelled so good, so she made her way to the giant stone table and took a seat. There was already a plate, knife and fork set out - smaller than the ones Mommy and Daddy used - but no pancakes and no syrup, so after seating she let them know.

"Can I have pancakes?" she demanded. Daddy, who'd followed her down with a newspaper tucked under his arm and Mommy, who was approaching with a stack of food piled on a plate, both raised an eyebrow. "Please?" Sara added.

They chuckled. "Sure thing Sara," Mommy said. Her parents came and sat down next to each other, and both the plate and a jug of syrup. Sara immediately reached out and grabbed a pancake before her parents could tell her to be patient and set to cutting it up with her knife. It wasn't easy, the stupid thing didn't want to be cut, but she did it anyway because she was strong!

Her parents poured syrup for her since it was too big and heavy, and as Sara began eating she listened in to what they talked about. She liked to pretend she understood.

For the first bit her parents didn't say anything, contend to eat, but as Daddy read his paper eventually he made a noise of interest. "Honey, listen to this! The siege of Orgrimmar's a complete success."

"Really? I thought the fighting was over a while ago."

"It was, but they just finished trying the Warchief. Uh, the old one, not the troll one. They executed him just yesterday."

"Hmmph, good riddance. You think they'll ever take back our old home?"

"I don't think so, honey. The Horde really, really seems to want it."

Mommy groaned. "It's just not fair! We should at least be allowed to raise our child in her town of birth."

"I know, I know. But hey, this new Warchief may decide he doesn't want Hillsbrad as much. Gotta look on the bright side, right?"

"Right. So, I was thinking I could bring Sara to the park while you were at work. Maybe she could make some friends."

"I don't know, honey. I mean, I don't know if there are many others her age group."

Mommy lightly smacked Daddy, which made Sara grin a little. "That's no excuse for her not getting some air." Mommy leaned in to whisper into Daddy's ear, but Sara didn't think she knew that she could hear her. "Though I do wish she'd find something else to do besides play around with the insects."

"Hey, everyone's gotta have a hobby. And she's not hurting anyone." Daddy glanced up at the clock on the wall that was behind Sara. "Oh shhh...oot. Honey, I gotta go to work." He stood up and grabbed his remaining pancakes in one hand. "Love you."

"Love you too." Daddy leaned over and kissed Mommy, then pulled away.

Sara, who'd been quietly eating and kicking her feet against her chair, grimaced. "EEEEWWWW!"

Her parents chuckled. "Alright, I'll leave before I traumatize Sara. Remember the test this time?"

"I will," Mommy said. They shared another kiss - _Eww!_ \- and Daddy left, taking his share of breakfast with him.

Sara looked at Mommy. "What test?" she asked.

"In a few, dear. Finish up your breakfast so we can go to the park, okay?" she said, stabbing her pancake with her big grown-up fork.

"Okay."

The rest of breakfast passed by quickly. When Sara was done she pushed the plate away. "Mommy, can I go get my magnifying glass?"

Sara _almost_ didn't catch the little twitch in Mommy's smile. "Of course, dear. But be back soon; I'll get everything else sorted."

"Yay!" she cheered, pulling away from the table to run upstairs. Once back in her room, she looked around and spotted the drawers where she kept her clothes messily laid out, no matter _how_ much Mommy said to fold them neatly. She crouched down and reached her hand out to the little space beneath it and felt around. Soon her hand wrapped around the handle, and pulled back with her magnifying glass. It was about half the size of her head, and the glass was held in black-painted wood. She smiled and turned around, running out of her room, carefully down the stairs, to where Mommy was packing lunch into a green bag.

"I got it!" she announced proudly.

"Good, Sara." Mommy hefted the bag up onto her back and reached out a hand for Sara. Holding her magnifying glass in one hand, Sara walked over to her and held her hand rightly. Mommy then led her out of the house, opening the door to the town, called Greenvale or something. Sara was _pretty_ sure it was called Greenvale. There was green grass everywhere, at least. There was also a ton of people around doing things that Sara didn't focus on too much because they were _boooriiing!_

Mommy led her past the buildings, past the school and the church, to the outskirts of town where there was a giant lake. The sun was rising in the bright blue sky, and it burned at the corner of her eyes because it was really, really bright even though some clouds were forming. There were also more than humans. There were a few night elves and... she didn't know their name, but they were blue and had weird horns. They looked funny.

Sara had to walk with a little skip in her step to keep up with Mommy, and it was a little tiring, but before long they arrived at the park on the outside of town. There was a big fence going all around the outside, a forest near the outskirts, and a small pond in the middle filled with fishies. The fishies never came up to the surface though, so Sara almost never got to see them dance. Oh well. At least there were plenty of smaller animals to have fun with.

There were a lot of other families around the park. Like, more-than-ten a lot! Mommy brought Sara to about halfway between the pond and the forest, where five wooden benches were placed for people to sit down if they got tired. As they walked, Sara hummed happily and swung her magnifying glass by her side wildly. Mommy sat down on a bench facing the forest and brought Sara to face her.

"Alright honey, I'll be right here in case anything goes wrong. You go and play, alright? Maybe speak with one of the other kids here?" she said, motioning to the other kids around Sara's height playing tag and whatnot.

"But they're stupid heads!" Sara whined.

"Sara, it's not nice to call other people stupid heads. I'm not telling you to go talk to them, but if they come to try and play with you, give it a shot. You'll never know you don't like it if you don't _try,_ " Mommy said, singing the last word.

_I can too know I won't like it,_ Sara thought, but she didn't say it out loud; that would make Mommy angry. Instead she gloomily said, "Okay."

"Good to hear. I'll be here if you need anything."

"Mmhmm!" she said, taking off at a quick pace. After some time she slowed down, feeling the warm air wrapped around her. Sara looked around the ground, searching for the mounds of dirt in particular. After a few minutes she found an anthill, with a dozen or so ants crawling around it.

She liked ants. They usually came in large numbers, which meant she could choose whether to play with them one at a time or a whole bunch, and if she decided to do a whole bunch it was so easy, because ants were small. Like, _really super_ small. She couldn't play with many mice, or garder snakes, at a time, but ants she could. And the best part was that there was always _more_ ants.

"Yay!" she cheered. Sara held out her magnifying glass and found one of the ants scurrying around a nearby patch of grassless dirt. She spotted the ring of light made by her magnifying glass and knelt over the ant, moving it and turning it to get the light smaller and smaller. Once it was small enough, she focused the super-duper bright spot over the ant she'd been looking at, making it dance. It ran away from her light, so she followed it, and then it ran back, which was silly, and then it stopped running and danced in one place, slower and slower the longer Sara held the light.

"Aww." Before too long, the ant stopped dancing completely, laying still. It made Sara a _little_ happy that she'd managed to tire it out like that, but she wanted to see it dance. To dance and run around in circles and _do_ things. So Sara focused, barely even noticing the itty-bitty black flashes in her palms. It wasn't hard to make ants move; they were so _small!_ With almost no effort, Sara took the ability-to-move and put it into the ant. There was a little flash of green along the ant's body, which _puffed_ outward and blew away on the wind. Immediately the ant stirred to life, dancing crazily and running away before Sara could get her magnifying glass to bear again. But it ran to another three ants, which made her smile. She could make them all dance!

Focusing on the same ability that let her make the ants able to dance, Sara reached out to all four ants - and another five not too far away - and pushed the energy into them. They started squirming around randomly in the dirt, and two of them even _hit_ each other as they danced! Sara giggled and increased the magic, causing the tiny ball of black energy in her hands to grow from the size of an ant to the size of a peanut. The effect spread from those nine to more of the ants around the anthill, forcing Sara to stand instead of crouch so she could see them all rolling around on the ground in zig-zags.

But like with her magnifying glass, if she kept them dancing too long they eventually slowed down, gave a few more kicks, and then stopped. It was pretty to see them scattered around like that, like peppercorns, but not as much fun as playing with them. Sticking her tongue out to the side, Sara focused on the ants and, one by one, put the ability-to-dance back into them, small grass-colored lights leaking from the ants for just a moment when she did. They scurried away into the grass; apparently they didn't want to play anymore.

... oh, but there were more ants! There were always more ants. But first, Sara wanted to see if maybe she could spot any fishies to play with.

Getting up and tightening her grip on her magnifying glass, Sara ran the distance to the nearby lake. She didn't really pay any attention to the grown-ups around or, or to the other kids who were playing something where they ran into each other, then ran away. All Sara was interested in was the lake.

Mommy and Daddy always told her to be careful around the lake, so she didn't fall in. And it wasn't that bad, since the lake started out very shallow, filled with all sorts of rounded pebbles that looked like they would hurt if she threw them at someone. Every now and then one of the tiny fish came out into the not-deep end of the lake, where she could cast her... her stuff on them and have fun with them. Sara took off her shoes and held them in her hands as she waded in until she was ankle deep in the super cold water, looking around for any fishies. She thought she spotted one, a tiny thin black fish, but before she could make it dance it swam away into the deep part of the lake where it was too dangerous for her to go; that made Sara frown.

After a few more minutes of looking for fish to play with, clouds gathering in the sky, Sara gave up. They just didn't want to play today. Oh well, back to the anthill!

Running out of the lake, Sara put her wet feet back into her shoes, giggling at the strange feeling of water and leather. She didn't go back to the same anthill as before, instead she found a new one and started playing with the ants there with her magnifying glass, or her powers, or sometimes both. Sometimes she made the ants stop being tired, sometimes she left them there. But doing that was a little tiring if she kept doing it again and again and again, so eventually she decided to run back to Mommy for lunch.

Mommy was already watching her and smiling by the time Sara ran back, her tummy growling. "Hey honey, did you have fun?" she asked in a kinda-worried voice. That was silly, Sara was fine! What was there to be worried about?

"Uh huh!" she said with a nod. "I'm hungry."

"Alright Sara, here." Mommy reached into her pack and pulled out her lunch. Sara hopped onto the bench and took the peanut butter sandwich, eagerly chowing down on it. Yum. "So, what were you doing in the lake?"

"Looking for fish to play with," she said. "They always splash when they dance!"

"Yes... dance. Sara, remember what I told you about making animals dance?"

_Ooooh_ not this talk again! It was so boring! It also made Sara tense; she felt like Mommy wanted to not let her have any _fun!_ "That it hurts them, and it's not nice, and never to make people dance," she whined.

"Sara," Mommy said sternly. "This isn't a joke. I'm serious."

She threw her head back and groaned. "I knooooow!" She leaned her head back over and kept eating. "Can I have some water?" She paused. "Please?" she added.

Mommy cracked a smile, breaking her stern look. "Of course." She fished out a flask of water and gave it to Sara, who quickly drained the cool, tasty liquid, pushing the flask away with a happy _'ah'_. "Now honey, I have a present for you, because you were such a good little girl."

Sara gasped. A trip to the park _and_ a present? This was the best day ever!

Mommy put both of her hands in the brown bag and pulled them out clenched into fists. She shown Sara both hands; in one was a single piece of chocolate, and in the other were two.

"Now Sara, you can make a choice. Either you can have this one piece of chocolate now, or you can have these two pieces of chocolate when we get home. Which do you want?"

Sara considered it, tilting her head. Then, she went with her first idea; she reached out her hands to grab all three at once! But Mommy was fast, like, _grown-up_ fast, and pulled her hands away before she could grab them.

"Ah ah, Sara. One or two."

Sara pouted, but said. "Fiiine. I want the two."

Mommy smiled. "Okay honey. Now come on Sara, it looks like rain. We should get back home soon."

"Aww," she pouted. "Okay." She hopped up from the bench as Mommy stood and followed her, skipping lightly as they left the park and went back to the town. Afternoon was always when both Mommy and Daddy worked, so she was always alone then. It wasn't so bad, she could look at her parents' books for fun. But it meant there were less things she could do. Mommy and Daddy had said that it would be better for her if she played with other kids her age, but...

... well, they _really were_ stupid heads!

As they got back into town, Sara's skipping and jumping died down into gloomy walking. But there was some good news as the clouds grew darker and heavier...

_Cracka-BOOM!_

The clap of thunder made her jump in surprise and, as it kept rolling through town and making her shake, she giggled. Yay! Thunderstorm!

Of course, as drops of rain began falling more and more, Mommy decided she wasn't as happy as Sara was. "Come on Sara, let's get inside." Mommy grabbed her hand and pulled her along as the rain fell harder and harder, until Sara could barely see ten yards in front of her! It also got into her eyes, which wasn't as much fun, but by then they were at home and Mommy was pushing her into the wooden building to get out of the storm.

Sara laughed when Mommy closed the door behind her, handing her the two chocolates she'd been promised. There was another peal of thunder, which made her laugh again. Taking off her shoes, Sara ran up the stairs and to her room to peer out through the window. She wouldn't even need the books! She could just look at the thunderstorm!

Giggling, she pulled a seat up to the window and sat on it. She crossed her arms on the windowsill and rested her chin on it. Outside was Greenvale, dark and gray with people running for shelter from the downpour, barely visible through the rain. Then a flash of lightning, followed by another roar of noise, making her giggle.

The rest of the day was fun too. She ate her candy, and Sara spent a good portion of the afternoon watching lightning bolts strike down from the clouds. The rain diminished quickly, but was joined by a howling wind that swept through the streets and made the house rattle. Each _hoo_ of wind or _crack_ of thunder made Sara giggle. At one point, she thought Mommy came up from her paperwork to check in on her, but she was too focused on the storm to ask what was going on. The little cuckoo clock in her room ticked the hours away. The sun went down, but the storm was still going so the only way Sara could tell was how dark it became, which just meant the lightning was even _easier_ to see! She still lit a candle though, cause if she hit herself in the dark that wouldn't be fun, not at all.

Eventually though, a light shudder ran through the house as the door opened and slammed shut. Sara's eyes widened. Daddy was home from blacksmith-er-y-ing work! She pushed her seat away from the window, almost tipped over and hurt herself, then jumped off and ran downstairs. "Daddy! Daddy!" she shouted. Sara found him easily, drenched with rain and soot. He leaned over as she approached grabbed her, and lifted her up.

"Hey there honey! Did you and your mom have a good time?"

She nodded vigorously. "Uh huh! We went to the park, and I looked in the lake for fishies, and then when we came home there was a storm, and I got to play with the ants!"

Father's smile twitched a bit when she mentioned playing with the ants and he lowered her back to her feet. "That's, um, really great to hear honey! Where's your mother right now?"

"Working in her room," she answered. "Are you gonna make dinner tonight?"

Father tilted his head and rubbed his chin. "If your mother's working, then I think I am. But first, I need to talk to her a bit. Think you'll be okay in your room?"

She nodded again. "Yeah!" She turned around and ran for the stairs. "Bye Daddy!" Another clap of thunder _boomed_ through the house, which made Sara giggle. Thunder was nice. Lightning was even better know; she couldn't predict where that would strike at _all!_ Thunder, she knew would always follow lightning. Still, Sara went back to her window and looked outside at the windy storm. Summer was her favorite season for just that reason; _sooo_ many storms!

Just a few minutes later, Sara found herself back in the dining room, with both of her parents talking with each other about boring, icky, grown-up stuff to the tune of wind outside. Dinner was pasta, and she liked slurping it up, or twirling it around and around her fork, or just looking at how the pasta was dropped together on her plate like a maze. Other times she'd listen to their grown-up talk, but after all the fun she'd had today in the park she was feeling too tired.

Then, Daddy said her name, which made Sara look up. "What?" she asked.

"Sara," Daddy said. "How would you like to get to go to school?"

She gasped in surprise. School? To learn things?! Could she learn to make things dance better? She couldn't _wait_ to go to school!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do leave a comment, lemme know what you think.


	3. Chapter 2: Wolf and Sheep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

She didn't want to go to school! She didn't she didn't she didn't!

Sara crossed her arms and pouted to Mommy, but she didn't relent and tied the sky-blue skirt around her legs tighter so there was no chance it would slip. She didn't know why she needed to wear it; she still had pants under it.

"Sara, don't give me that look," Mommy scolded as she grabbed a comb and started running it through Sara's shoulder-length hair, making her wince each time it pulled at a tangle. "You want to look your best, don't you?"

"Hmmph!" she said, crossing her arms harder. "Fine," she said glumly as Mommy kept brushing her.

She didn't wanna go to school though! She'd have to be around the stupid heads _aaaall_ day! She hated the other kids; they were stupid heads! Sara didn't wanna go and learn about stuff if she had to be around them, but Mommy and Daddy didn't let her choose. It was so unfair! Why did she have to go to some boring school building to listen to some grown up she didn't know? Couldn't her parents just teach her things? They were grown ups too, they were smart!

Eventually Mommy finished brushing her. Since she'd had breakfast before, that meant Sara was no longer able to stall for time. Mommy gave her a wooden box, which Sara knew held a flask of water, an apple, and a peanut butter sandwich.

"Now Sara, don't look so sad. You'll love it, I promise!" Daddy had already gone to work, so that left Mommy to hold Sara's hand and lead her out the front door.

Outside it was cloudy, but the sun still played peak-a-boo from behind some of them, which made the ground go light to dark and back to light. Sara walked glumly through Greenvale, sulking all the while. If she was going to go to school, she was gonna let Mommy know she was not happy about it. Not one bit! Even if she did have _no_ idea of what to expect and the idea of something unpredictable made her bouncy with excitement. She liked unpredictable things; you never knew what you'd get!

Sara didn't pay much attention during the walk to school, instead focusing on angrily kicking pebbles ahead of her. It was only when they actually reached the schoolhouse that Sara started focusing on her surroundings again. There were a few other people around, mostly grown-ups like Mommy with kids her age around them, being herded inside the building. The schoolhouse itself was far away from the rest of the town, and had a fence around the back that led right to the edge of the forest. The school was a two-story tall wooden building painted blue, with a circular window on the top looking down at her and a boring door that was open to the inside.

There was nothing she could do; Mommy led her in no matter how much Sara didn't want to be there. They got in line and slowly but surely ended up inside the school.

There were a bunch of boring desks and chairs set up in a perfect orderly circle, so Sara made a face at them. Away from the circle, there was a larger wooden desk with all sorts of papers and quills and stuff on it. There were windows that revealed a cloudy day and bright green grass no doubt filled with animals she could play with. The walls were blue on the inside too, and above the windows were posters that had words she couldn't read. They also had pictures; a smiling kid her age, the lion-thing that meant 'Alliance', and a bunch of other things like a smiling sun, an ant holding up a flower, stupid things like that.

Ants didn't even have faces like that. They had weird smooth eyes and pincers. Sara knew; she'd checked on the ones she tired out.

There were a bunch of other grown ups like Mommy surrounding one old lady, but there was one that _really_ got Sara's attention. He was tall, like, so tall he had to squat not to hit the ceiling. His head had these bony things on the top, he had a tail, his eyes were _glowing_ and weird things hung down from his head. Oh, and he was blue. _Really_ blue. There was a kid next to him; she was blue too. Sara had seen them around town a few times before, but she never saw them up close because they were stupid heads. The blue people _really_ stood out among everyone else, even the few night elves in town.

After the grownups were done with their boring talking, Mommy came back to her and knelt to her level. "Alright honey, be good now okay? Listen to what the teacher says and be nice."

"Ok _ay,_ " she said, holding her lunch box tightly in case any of the other kids decided to steal it. Even though they all also had something with them like that, so there wouldn't be any reason for them to take hers. "Bye Mommy," she said.

Mommy leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. "Goodbye sweetie, have fun!"

"Bye, Mommy," she said. After that Mommy left, waving goodbye to her once more before vanishing out the door and leaving her alone with all the people she didn't know about.

Before anything else could happen, Sara heard footsteps next to her and turned around. Then she looked up at the old lady who was probably the teacher. "Hello dear," she said, with a paper bag. "What's your name?"

Sara looked down at the bag, then back up at her. "Sara."

"Good to meet you, Sara. Hey, why don't you go pick a place to sit and open up this bag, alright? In it are things to help you introduce yourself to everyone else. There's a name tag too, for you to write your name."

Sara looked away at the other grownups saying goodbye to the kids. One of the kids had a red face and looked like he was about to start _crying_ because their daddy had left. What a baby. Sara had _never_ cried, not once! Nuh uh!

Someone else, some random boy she didn't care about, was already sitting, so she resolved to sit as far away from him as she could. She went to a desk near one of the square room's corners and sat down, placing both her lunchbox and the bag on top. Opening the bag, Sara pulled out the things inside. There was a pencil, which Sara use to scribble a bit on the desk. Next she found what she guessed was the name tag. Sara knew her _name_ of course, but she didn't know how to write stuff, so she just drew squiggly lines all over it. The last thing in the bag was some sort of round green candy, which Sara put in her lunchbox for later.

The old lady was talking with one of the crying babies while the others, with lunch boxes and bags in hand, each chose a desk to sit at. Unlike Sara, a lot of them were kicking their feet excitedly. Sara ignored the girl and boy who sat next to her, choosing instead to doodle storm clouds and volcanoes on the back of her name tag to the tune of chatter and sniffles around her.

Soon the old lady, probably the teacher, came into the center of the circle and clapped her hands. "Good morning, class! Is everyone ready for their first day of school!"

"Yeah!" came most of the class.

A moment later there was a quieter, "Yeah," from everyone else.

"Alright, now, has everyone written their names on their name tags, so everyone else will know who you are?"

"No," Sara said, but she didn't think the lady heard her because almost everyone else said 'yeah'. One girl raised her name tag up in the air happily. Stupid head.

"Excellent! Now, lets play a game. We'll pick on someone here, then that person will introduce themselves, their favorite color, and something they like. Sound fun?" More 'yeah's, and the teacher moved to in between two desks. "Great! I'll start, and we'll go in a circle. My name is Mrs. Laudenbor, my favorite color is yellow like the sun, and I like teaching." The old lady looked to her left, at a boy with blonde hair.

The boy smiled. "My name's Alerd, my favorite color is blue! And I like to play with blocks." Boring.

The blue girl was next. "My name's Leira, my favorite color is white, and I like to play outside." Boring.

"My name's Samantha, my favorite color is green, and I like playing with my dolls." Boring.

"My name is..." Boring.

"... my favorite color..." Boring.

"... and I like..." _BORING!_

And then it was her turn. She looked around, and considered just not doing it... but Mommy had told her to behave. "My name is Sara, my favorite color is... purple and green, and I like watching animals dance."

Then the girl next to her spoke, and the sharing kept going until all thirty-something people had gone. Then, the old lady clapped her hands. "Excellent! Now that you've all introduced yourself, why don't you all come here into the middle and sit in a ring, and we can read a story about what you can expect here. Does that sound fun?"

"Yeah!" everyone else said. They got out of their seats and moved into the circle. Mrs. Laudenbor went to the large, wooden desk that was probably hers and came back with a book. Once she was back, they all moved forward and sat in a ring in front of her. The carpet was soft and blue like the lake. At least it was soft.

The teacher opened the book, which had a picture of a little brick house on its cover, and started to read. "Jarion's First Day of School," she read. "Would anyone like to guess what we're going to learn in this book? Yes, Briara?"

"I think it's about, um, what we're going to learn in school, and what you, um, can and can't do in school!" she said.

"That's correct Briara, very good." The old lady opened the book and began to read from it. "Jarion's first day of school." She turned the book to show them a picture of some boy standing in front of a schoolhouse. She turned the book back. "Today is Jarion's first day of school. He's going to school to learn about all sorts of things, like reading, math, magic, and science."

Sara, who'd placed an arm on her knees and was resting her head in it, sat up straight. Magic? Reading?

_Oh,_ she thought. _I forgot we'll actually be learning stuff. Not just being around everyone else. Oopsie._

She flipped the page. "Today is Jarion's first day of school. His mommy brought him to school, and told him that she had to leave him with the teacher until school was over, and then she'd be right back to pick him up. Jarion was very sad." She again showed them the book, and Jasion had blue tears running down his face.

"I wasn't sad!" one of the boys said. "Daddy said he'll be back when school ends!"

The teacher looked at him and smiled. "That's very nice to hear, Tonduin. But everyone, remember this. Whenever you want to say something, or ask a question, raise your hands and wait for me to pick on you, and _then_ say what you want to say. Okay?"

He nodded. "Okay, Mrs. Laudenbor."

"Great!" Someone else raised a hand. "Yes, Elizabeth?"

"Like this?" she asked, grinning wide.

"Yes, exactly like that. Now." She turned back to the book. "Jarion and the rest of his class sat down and listened to the teacher as she taught them the alphabet. At one point, the teacher asked a question, and Jarion knew the answer. He raised his hand - " The teacher raised her hand and put it back down. " - and the teacher called on him. He answered correctly, and knew he was so smart."

Sara started to get bored again. She didn't care about Jarion, she cared about herself! She started to let her eyes wander over the inside of the school building, or just look outside and wish she was out there instead of in there, not learning the things she wanted. Sometimes, though, she heard little bits of what the teacher was reading.

"... found he had fun playing with others in recess... "

"... he didn't understand how it worked, but that was okay, because someone else raised their hand and asked... "

"... and at the end of the day, his mommy had come back... "

"... that was how Jarion's first day of school went. Alright class." Sara jerked her head to look at Mrs. Laudenbor. Was it over? "Now, let's go over the Good Job Board. Everyone up, up up up!" she said as she stood, waving her fingers at them to stand. She led them over to a large paper square with wood around its edges. There was stuff written on it, too, but Sara hadn't learned to read by hearing _Jarion's First Day of School._

"This is the Good Job Board. Every day, I'll write down who did a really good job in school, whether they helped someone, or they asked a very good question in class, and they'll get a sticker on this board. If you get your board completely filled up, you'll get a prize!"

A prize? Where was the prize? Could she take it? Sara decided to ask the old lady in the future. She was a stupid head, so she'd probably just tell her.

"But, if you do something naughty like fighting, or cheating, then you'll lose a sticker _and_ I'll have to tell your parents all about what you did." Some of the kids gasped quietly at that. "But we shouldn't have to worry about that, because I'm certain you are all wonderful, wonderful students."

_Hmmph!_

"Now, how about we all get started on our lessons? Today is going to be a game called 'Name That Thing'!" The old lady went to her desk and got out a few cards the size of her head. Sara leaned forward, still standing by the Good Job Board. "Everyone go sit by your desks and we can start!" They all filed to their desks. At one point Sara bumped into one of the other girls, so she pushed her back a bit before getting back to her seat.

The teacher held the first card to her chest. "Here's how the game goes. I'll hold up a card, and if you think you know what's on it, raise your hand and wait for me to call on you. Whoever gets the most right gets a sticker. Here's the first one." She moved out of the circle so everyone could see her at once, then flipped the card to show Sara a picture of the yellow sun. Immediately, she - and everyone else - raised an arm.

"I saw Michael's hand up first," she said, pointing to the boy. _Liar! My hand was up first!_

"It's the sun!" he said.

"Correct! That's one for Michael. Now for the next card." She set the sun aside and showed the next card. Like before, everyone's hands shot up. "Yes, Leira?"

"Grass!" the blue girl said. _Not fair!_

The next picture came up. Sara didn't raise her hand this time, because she didn't know what it was. It was green. It had fangs too. She'd never seen anything like it, and apparently neither had half the class. However...

"Yes, Alerd?"

"It's an orc! Like in the Horde!" _A what in the what?_

"Correct! Now, who can tell me what... _this_ is?" the old lady asked, showing a new card. Sara's hand shot up, but instead the teacher looked at the boy two to her left. "Yes, Alex?"

"It's a mountain!" _She's ignoring me on purpose! I don't wanna play anymore!_

Sara crossed her arms and sulked while Mrs. Laudenbor pulled out a new picture. This one was of a woman with one arm extended, and what looked like a _giant_ icicle flying from it. "Correct! Who can tell me what this is? Yes, Michael was the first one again."

"It's magic!" he said excitedly. _Magic? Is that what my abilities are called? No, magic is about ice._ "Mrs. Laudenbor, I'm gonna grow up to do magic too!"

"That's great to hear, Michael! Okay, Michael has two! Now, who can guess this one?" she asked, showing a new picture. This one showed a picture of a square, with a triangle on top, and smaller squares in it. Sara didn't raise her hand, though; it wasn't like she was gonna get called on anyway even if she _did_ know it was a house. Or that the next one was a rain cloud. She... didn't know the one after that was a tornado, but she also knew the one after _that_ was a volcano.

Eventually Name That Thing ended, and Michael got a sticker. Which totally wasn't fair, because she knew a lot of the things, and if she'd been called on she'd have gotten just as many as Michael! She should've had that sticker and been closer to the prize, not him!

She liked the teacher even less after that.

* * *

Sara sat through the rest of the teacher's games. There was one where everyone had to draw what they'd thought they'd look like as an adult, then 'seven up' which Sara tried to cheat by peering through her eyes. Once or twice it worked. Especially with the blue girl, since nobody else had _hooves._ Then came the time for lunch. They all sat at their tables and the teacher said they were allowed to talk with each other, and to get up from their seats and move to other people to 'make friends'.

She stayed in one place and opened up her lunch box. There was the small flask of water, and the apple, the candy she got at the start of school, and the peanut butter sandwich. The old lady sat behind her desk, looking over them with a smile.

She went for the candy first, popping the little green ball into her mouth. Sara screwed up her face immediately. _Sour! Sour sour sour!_ She swished the candy to the left of her mouth, then right, then repeated the process again and again, until the little not-nice thing in her mouth turned smaller and smaller, then turned sweet and tingly, and then was so small she bit down on it aaaand... then it was gone.

Aw. She wanted more candies like that.

Oh well. Sara went for her flask of water to wash down the taste, and then noticed that someone was coming to sit next to her. She looked over to the blue girl as she sat next to her in the recently-vacated desk.

"Hi! Can I sit here?"

Sara put down the water and looked at 'Leira'. "I guess," she said, turning back to her lunch. The other girl sat at the desk next to her, with her own lunch already out.

She lifted the sandwich to her mouth... "So, what're you eating?"

_Ugh._ She looked over at the blue girl, and at her weird freaky glowing blue eyes. "Peanut butter sandwich. Why're you asking?" she asked.

"Just cause," she said. "I got a blueberry muffin!" Leira said, showing off her lunch.

"So?" Sara asked, narrowing her eyes at the stupid head. What if she used her ability to make her dance? Not a _lot,_ just a little. Just enough to make her uncomfortable being around Sara. Not enough for Mommy and Daddy to know...

"Wanna try it? I'll give you a piece of mine if you give me a piece of yours."

Sara considered that. On one hand, she'd have less of her sandwich. On the other hand, she'd get to try a blueberry muffin, which she'd never had before, so she had _no_ idea what it would taste like. "Okay." She tore off a bit of her sandwich and gave it to the blue girl, who gave her a piece of her muffin, with a little berry inside.

"Thanks!" She popped the bit of sandwich into her mouth at the same time Sara ate the piece of muffin. It was okay. Kinda squishy, though. Leira seemed to enjoy the sandwich though. "Mmm! This is good! What's your name? I forgot."

She forgot.

"Sara, stupid head," she said angrily.

Leira narrowed her eyes. "I'm not a stupid head!" she returned.

"Are to."

"Am not."

"Are to."

"Am not."

"Are to."

"Oh yeah? Well, you're a stupid head for thinking I'm a stupid head!"

_What?!_ she thought "Am not!" Sara defended.

"Are to."

"Am not."

"Are to."

"Am not!

"Are to!"

"Oh yeah?" Sara said angrily. "Prove it!"

"You prove that I'm a stupid head."

"I asked you first."

"So?"

"So you have to answer first."

"Hmmph!" Leira said, crossing her arms while Sara grinned. "Well... I'm not a stupid head, because I'm smart! And I can prove it, cause I know that there are different kinds of magic like frost, shadow, holy, and fire. Ha!" Oh. So her ability _was_ called magic, if there were more kinds than just ice. "I know something you didn't, so I can't be a stupid head!"

Sara couldn't argue with that logic.

"Oh." She looked back at her sandwich, then back again at Leira. "Sorry for calling you a stupid head."

"It's okay. Sorry for calling you a stupid head."

She'd better be sorry. Sara took another bite of her sandwich. "Why did you sit next to me?"

"You looked lonely. Maybe we can play tag during recess!"

"What's recess and tag?" she asked, swallowing her food.

Leira gasped. "You mean you don't know? After lunch we get to go outside to play, and after that school's over and we get to go home! And tag is only the best game ever! Someone is it, and they have to touch everyone else so they become it instead! And everyone else has to run from who's it!"

"That sounds hard. I'd rather make animals dance."

"You can make animals dance?"

"Uh huh! I can show you after school in the park! Oh. But we have to go home after school."

Leira frowned. "Yeah, my parents are taking me home after recess."

"So do I, Mommy's coming to pick me up."

"Wait!" Leira said. "Maybe I can ask my parents to come over and play! Or you can come to my house!"

"Play what?"

"Tag of course!" she said excitedly, throwing her arms up, then lowering them to take another bite of her muffin. While she ate, Sara took a gulp of water. "It's _super_ fun, I'll show you at recess."

"Okay," Sara said, turning back to her lunch. In no time she finished the sandwich, then the apple, then drank the rest of her water.

And then, of course, Mrs. Laudenbor came to the middle of the room and whistled _really_ loudly. It made Sara jump.

"Alright! Everyone have a good lunch?"

"Yeah!"

"Yes Mrs. Laudenbor!"

"Yep!"

"Excellent! Now, I want everybody to get up, up, up out of their seats and form a single file line behind me."

One of the other kids asked, "What's a single-file line?"

"Ah!" the old lady said, raising one finger. "What did I say about raising our hands?" The same kid raised their hand again. "Yes Isabella?"

"What's a single file line?" she repeated.

"It's when one person stands behind the person in front of them, and someone else stands behind them, _all_ the way back until there are no more people. Let's try it now. Everyone get in line behind me, no pushing!"

They started to move towards the old lady. Sara lingered back, waiting. She didn't want to push around for a spot, so she just waited until everyone else was in a line and, with her empty lunchbox in hand, got into the end of line. The teacher walked out of the room, turned down a hallway, and they left the school through the back. From her spot at the back of the line, Sara could see that Leira was six people in front of her, swinging her arms back and forth as they walked into the field behind the school.

The sun was still playing peek-a-boo from behind the clouds, casting moving shadows on the ground. There was a fence that cut off a large circular-ish square-ish shape behind the school, which went all the way to the forest. Pushed against the school's wall were creaky wooden benches. Mrs. Laudenbor stopped the line and turned around to face them. "Alright everybody! Next is something called recess. You get to play whatever you want or, if you're tired, come sit at the benches. There's only two rules; be nice, and stay where I can see you. Sound good?"

"Yeah!" cheered the rest of the class. Every began to run freely, splitting up into... pretty much the same groups they'd been in during lunch. Weird.

"Come on Sara!" Leira said, bounding up to her and grabbing her arm. She began to tug, then suddenly stopped and looked at her seriously. "I'm going to be it, and I'll chase you." Sara looked closer, and gasped in surprise. _Leira had tentacles!_ Not very long ones and only, like, four or something hanging from her head. But she had tentacles! Like an octopus! "If I touch you, you have to count to five, then _you're_ it and have to touch me."

"Okay," Sara said warily. She didn't like how hard 'tag' sounded, but she didn't have anything _better_ to do. Sadly.

"Good! Run!"

Sara turned around and started running away from Leira as fast as her five year old legs could carry her. Her dress got in the way, almost making her trip a few times, and when she reached the fence she had to turn to the side.

That was when Leira tagged her. "Tag, you're it!"

Sara frowned, but stopped and began counting. "One." Leira turned around. "Two." The blue girl ran away from her. Now that she was facing away Sara could more clearly see that Leira had a tail, like the big blue man she'd come with. "Three. Four. Five!" Sara broke out running, trying to reach Leira. It didn't take long for Leira to reach the fence again, and she turned to the side just like Sara had.

But Sara was too _slow!_ She got closer to Leira during the turn, but after that she started to fall behind because she was slower than Leira. Though it probably didn't help she was still carrying her lunch box...

... _but_ at the next turn she got closer again, closer than she had last time. Then Leira ran straight, and Sara fell behind a little, until she had to turn again, then Sara came _really close!_ She reached out to try and poke Leira's back but the blue girl slipped away... until the next turn, when Sara's hand touched her arm.

"Tag!" she said victoriously. "You're it!" Sara turned around, not waiting to bother with Leira's counting. She had an idea, anyway. After all, she had to count to five...

Leira was faster than her, so she got tagged eventually. As Leira was turning around, Sara quickly said, "Onetwothreefourfive!" and then tagged Leira before running away.

"Hey! No fair!"

Of course it was fair! It wasn't Sara's fault she'd thought of it before Leira had... of course that didn't stop her from getting tagged, but before she could finish her fast-count Leira was already gone, running past the other kids playing some sort of stupid head game.

Slowly, as recess went on, Sara and Leira ran slower and slower and she breathed heavier and heavier. And Leira figured out her tricks, and she even tried to do the fast-counting thing _to her!_ Totally not fair! But... Sara liked having to figure out which way Leira was going to suddenly change direction, then not being able to predict it and _tagging her anyway, ha!_ Or when she ran behind other kids so Leira had to slow down, or she'd hit them. Or how to figure out when Leira had figured out that she'd figured out what her plans were; Sara _really_ liked recess.

And then recess ended by the teacher whistling.

Everyone stopped and turned to look at her motioning them to come to her. "Aww, I don't wanna!" Sara pouted. But Leira was already running to the old lady, so she followed after her.

"Alright everybody, did you all have a good first day of school?"

"Yeah!" everyone cheered. Even Sara had to nod. She _had_ liked playing tag with Leira, even if it left her tired and wanting some ice cream.

"That's great! Now, everybody follow me back inside." They did so, leaving the mild heat of outside for the cool shade of indoors. Mrs. Laudenbor walked over to the Good Job Board and gave everyone a sticker - leaving Michael in the lead - for being 'such good students'.

"Alright everybody, I'll see you tomorrow! Your parents are here to pick you up, so everyone say 'Goodbye Mrs. Laudenbor'!"

"Goodbye Mrs. Laudenbor," they said, running to the front door and out of school, _finally._

The grown-ups from before school were there, and so was Mommy. Sara ran over to her, waving goodbye to Leira as she did. Mommy reached down and grabbed Sara's hand. "Hey there honey!"

"Hi Mommy!" she said, kicking at pebbles on the road as Mommy began leading her away from the building.

"Did you have a good first day of school?" Mommy asked.

"I guess," she said, still grinning. "I played tag with Leira during recess."

"Who's Leira?" Mommy asked her with a little grin.

"She's the blue girl - "

"Draenei dear, they're called draenei."

" - she's the draenei girl. She's not a stupid head like the rest of them."

"Sara, you know that - nevermind, dear. So, do you think maybe you'll like school?"

"Yeah," she said, looking down at the little rocks she kept kicking. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw that there weren't many other people around, for some reason. "Maybe. Oh, and I learned something today!" she said excitedly, thinking to when she learned the name of her abilities.

"What is it?"

She let go of Mommy's hand and focused causing black smoke to swirl around her free hand, and around it was a ring of color, green on the inside and purple on the outside. "I can do magic!" She stopped the magic, looking up at Mommy with a smile. She wondered how Mommy would react knowing she _already_ knew how to do magic.

"Oh wow, Sara. That's... very impressive. But I don't think you should go around showing people you can do magic, alright? They might end up jealous."

Oh. "Okay, Mommy." Still, now that she knew it was called 'magic' she could ask Mommy and Daddy for all kinds of books about magic.

She... just needed to learn to read first.


	4. Chapter 3: Look Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

Where _was_ something to play with?

Sara looked around the forest clearing, searching for an animal to practice her magic on. Mommy and Daddy let her go into the woods as long as she came back before sunset and she had, like, _tons_ of hours before that. And it wasn't like there was anything dangerous in the woods either, otherwise all the hunters in Greenevale would've chased them out. Sara wasn't lost either; she knew the _exact_ way back by just going to, like, the left of the sun. She learned _that_ in the first grade and she was smarter than back then; she was _seven_ now, not just six!

Which gave her _plenty_ of time alone to practice her magic without anybody else getting jealous. Though maybe she _wanted_ them to be jealous...

There! On the little hill at the edge of the clearing was a cute little squirrel, with beady eyes and a bushy tail, looking her way with an acorn in its paws. It looked at her. Sara looked at it, and began to channel her magic...

Before she could do anything, the squirrel dropped the acorn and ran away. Sara gasped and ran after it. She had to duck beneath a branch and then she saw the squirrel was climbing a tree, then scurrying along the limbs. Sara narrowed her eyes, raised her right hand at it, and then her magic began to glow around that one hand.

The squirrel tried to jump to another branch but, thanks to Sara, it missed and fell _all_ the way down with a little _thud_ and started dancing in place. Sara ran over and looked down at the animal. Apparently it had hurt itself when it fell. Like, _really_ hurt itself. It was bleeding and everything, even as it slowly danced to the tune of Sara's magic pulsing in her one outstretched hand.

Most of the other animals in the forest ran as Sara started to play, which was no fun because Sara wanted to make all of them dance. Plus, she had to practice her magic to do more things; Mommy and Daddy said that practice made perfect.

Sara focused on the dancing squirrel and narrowed her eyes. Her other hand also started to glow with magic as she concentrated.

Sara wasn't, like, an idiot. Mommy and Daddy had told her _tons_ of times that when she made things dance she was actually 'hurting' them. If Mommy and Daddy had said it, it was probably true. So Sara wanted to try other things; just making things dance got boooooriiiiing.

She focused on the squirrel's legs and moved her magic from its head to the limbs. The squirrel stopped dancing and fell over, breathing shallowly with its left side coated in blood. It moved its head, but not its legs.

_Yay! I did it!_

Hmm... what else did she want to do with the squirrel? Maybe she could make it run up the tree and then jump back down. Or maybe make it walk around like people! That would be funny!

Sara focused harder, pushing her magic on the squirrel's head. Suddenly Sara could see little lines in it, like someone had filled the squirrel's head with strings connected with each other, and little _flashes_ of purple light moved across them.

She walked closer to the squirrel and knelt so she could get a closer look. A lot of flashes were moving across her head, but she was more interested in the other ones. Sara stuck her tongue out to the side as she focused on one of the strings which led flashes of light down its neck, and _plucked_ it with her magic like a violin. Immediately, despite her using its magic to keep it from moving, its left forepaw _twitched!_

Sara gasped, then searched for another string to pluck. That one made the squirrel breathe in suddenly. Another moved its tail. Eventually, she found all four of the strings that led to its legs. With that done, Sara backed up and giggled, lowering her left hand and raising the right to begin _plucking_ and _pulling._

The squirrel chittered as Sara rolled it over onto its stomach, then onto its back again, then onto its stomach again. She stood it up and began to make it dance again, kicking out its legs and pulling them back in while its head spun around like a top.

"Hmm," she said aloud. "Can squirrels stand on two legs? I think they can." She moved her magic around the strings, causing it to lift up its forelegs... and immediately fall over and hit its head on the dirt. "Oops. Come on, up you get." This time she had the squirrel lean forward as it stood, and extend its tail behind itself. Then she lowered it to all fours and took a few steps forward, a few turns, and whenever the squirrel just fell over she picked it back up. Though... there was a _lot_ of red coming from it.

Eventually, the squirrel fell over one last time and Sara tried to get it back up. Nothing. Looking at the strings in its head, Sara found that whenever she plucked them with her magic, they just didn't _vibrate_ anymore no matter how hard she tried; the poor squirrel was too tired to keep playing.

Sara frowned and left the squirrel there to rest. She didn't feel like making it want to play again...

_Shuffle-scruffle._

Sara turned her head to the right and smiled. Another squirrel! _Yay!_ She was so lucky! Before it could run from her Sara pointed her hands at it and pushed her magic into its head. The strings leading to its legs stopped flashing with light and the squirrel fell over. She wiggled her fingers like it was a puppet, and the squirrel stood up on its hind legs and wobbled forward to Sara. She looked around, and there hiding in the bushes was... something else. It was in the shadows, so all Sara saw were its glowing eyes. Keeping one hand outstretched to the squirrel, she pointed the other one - covered in magic - at the animal. She imagined pinching on the strings leading to its arms and legs so the normal pulses wouldn't get there, and then she made it walk over to her.

Sara giggled and had the two animals face each other while she herself sat on a log, hands outstretched like she was playing with puppets. She had the raccoon loom over the squirrel and she said, "Rawr! I am a big mountain giant! I am going to crush your village, mwahahaha!"

"Never!" she had the squirrel say, waddling up to the raccoon. "I will defeat you and save my village of Acornwind! Rarr!" The squirrel tapped the raccoon, which was tricky since she had to get it to stand upright and reach out while not falling over.

"Oh no!" she said as the raccoon-giant stumbled back. "I am hurt! But you cannot defeat me, mwahaha! I am a mountain giant!" The raccoon walked up to the squirrel. "You're just a squirrel! Splat!" She had the raccoon rear up to hit the squirrel, but she didn't balance it properly and it fell over onto its back. Sara went with it. "Raargh! You have outwitted me!"

"Hurray!" the squirrel went. "My village is saved!"

"Oh no it isn't," the raccoon boomed, getting back up. "I am still a giant, and I can still take a hit! Rawr!" She made it rear up, and this time she balanced it right and made it smack the squirrel away. She didn't let the little thing get back up. "Mwahaha! Now Acornwind is mine to destroy!" The raccoon stomped over to some random twigs which, in Sara's mind, was Acornwind. She had the raccoon begin destroying it.

"Nooo!" the squirrel said. "My home! Who ever shall help us?"

Sara looked at the squirrel she'd been playing with earlier, still too tired to move, and extended her magic into it as well. She focused a bit harder, finding the squirrel's ability-to-move floating... well, floating somewhere 'out there' and grabbed it. She pushed the ability-to-move back into the squirrel, and at the same time the little hole in its side got sewn up as green light _puffed_ out of the animal. Once it wasn't too tired to play anymore, she started to control that squirrel as well.

"I am here to save the day!" Sara said in a high, squeaky voice, waddling it over to the giant trampling over Acornwind. "Have at thee, mountain giant! Hiya!" The squirrel charged at the raccoon and beat its paws at its hide. The raccoon swung at the squirrel, but Sara made it go limp so that the 'giant' missed and fell over.

"Ragh! No! I am a giant, you are all puny squirrels!"

The two squirrels formed up around the raccoon. "Chaaarge!" she shouted, running the squirrels at the raccoon. They beat at the raccoon a bit, and she had it smack one of them aside with a roar. Then she made the first squirrel roll it onto its back, leap onto it, and punch the raccoon's stomach.

At the same time, Sara _pushed_ more of her magic into the raccoon, causing the orbs of black-purple-green in her hands to grow bigger for a moment. Green electricity flashed around the 'giant', and then raccoon went still. "Nooo!" she roared. "I am defeated! Bleh!" she said with a giggle. The squirrels danced around, cheering about having saved Acornwind... and Sara yawned.

"Haa... hmm." She blinked. She'd better get back home. She let go of the squirrels, and they immediately ran away from her; apparently they had to go home too. "Bye squirrels!" she said, turning around and heading to the left of the setting sun. She had school tomorrow, so she had to go to sleep early.

* * *

The next day they had recess and lunch at the same time, which meant she got to sit outside under the sun and find what Mommy had packed for lunch today.

Off to the side Mrs. Bracepin, the teacher for the second grade, sat on a bench and watched everyone playing and eating. She was about as old as Mommy, with brown hair and... clothes. That was about all she knew; she didn't really care about the teachers other than what they looked like.

"Hmm," she said, opening her lunch box while a bunch of other kids decided 'lunch later' and played around in a large, dumb crowd. Sara looked inside and groaned. A ham sandwich and milk _again?_ This was the second day in a row!

"Hey Sara!" she heard Leira say as she sat next to her on the bench with her own lunch.

"Hi," she said gloomily as Leira opened her own lunch.

"What's wrong?" the draenei asked.

"Mommy gave me the same lunch again," she pouted. "I was hoping it'd be something _different!_ "

Leira laughed. "You big baby."

"Am not! I was just hoping. Doesn't make me a baby."

"Uh huh. Want to swap with some of mine? My mom made me waffles."

Sara looked over. Sure enough, Leira had some waffles. No syrup though, which was sad... but on the other hand waffles! "Sure." She pinched off a bit of her sandwich and traded it with Leira for a bit of her own food. "Thanks," she said before taking a bite of her sandwich.

"You're welcome."

No sooner had Sara finished up her next bite than Leira had a question. "So, wanna play orcs and humans today?"

"Nah," she said. She didn't like that game; more often than not she ended up as the orc, because Leira _really_ didn't like being it. "I just kinda wanna sit around today."

"Aww, please? What if we play tag?"

She raised an eyebrow. "We played tag yesterday."

"Did not!" she said.

"Did _too."_

"Well then..." Leira screwed up her face. "... how about we play hide and seek?"

"Okay, I guess," she said before taking a bite of her ham sandwich.

"Yay! Maybe after we can play sword and board?"

"What about mages and warlocks?" Sara asked in return. "We haven't played that in _forever._ "

"Ugh," Leira said, tilting her head back. "Fine. Whatever, let's just finish lunch so we can play!"

_That's what I was doing!_ she thought. But Sara decided not to say anything about it, and instead kept eating until her sandwich and waffle were gone, leaving only her milk.

Then Sara heard a lot of kids her age talking a _lot_ and turned her head over to look at what was going on. Everyone else had crowded around the edge of the school's fence, looking at something.

Leira stood up from the bench, leaving her lunch. "Come on, let's go see!"

_But I don't wanna!_ "Fine," Sara grumbled as she followed after the draenei, running through the grass.

She and Leira pushed forward through the crowd to see what everyone was looking at. Some of the girls and one of the boys looked a little green, which was _weird._ In the middle of the ring was one of the boys - she thought his name was Jaron - poking at something with a stick.

Leira gasped and held her hands to her mouth. "Ew, ew ew ew. It's a frog."

"A frog?" Sara asked, stepping forward and crouching. Sure enough, Jaron was poking a frog. The little thing was on its back, with a large red injury, and it was too tired to move at all. "A frog!" she said excitedly.

"It's dead!" Jaron said. "I found it like this. See?" he asked, using his stick to roll the frog over onto its front.

_Huh?_ But before Sara could ask her questions, one of the girls in the crowd asked it first. "What do you mean dead?"

Someone else answered. "It means it's not alive anymore! It can't do anything." His voice became dramatic. "Ever. Again."

While the girl who'd asked started to cry and ran away, Sara just frowned. Never again? That was stupid. She decided to say as much. "That's stupid. It's just tired."

"Nuh uh!" Jaron said. "Look, it's dead!"

_He thinks he knows better than me?!_ "Betcha I can make it move again!" she challenged with her hands on her hips.

"Nuh uh!" he said, poking it again.

"Uh huh!"

"Oh yeah?" he asked, standing up. "Prove it."

"I will!" she said testily as she stomped up to him. She pushed Jaron out of the way - _'Hey!'_ \- and looked down at the frog. Mommy and Daddy had said not to show the other kids her magic, cause it would make them jealous, but Sara really didn't care if they were jealous. In fact, it sounded kinda nice. They'd know that she could do something _they_ couldn't. And... this was at school. Mommy and Daddy wouldn't know. She began to focus, and her hands lit up with magic.

Everyone around her gasped, and began whispering. "Sara can do magic."

"Sara can do magic?"

"Sara can do magic!"

She focused on the frog, hard enough that its skin began to shimmer with green fog. But... this was hard. The longer something was 'dead' the harder it was for her to make it want to play again, so this froggy must've been tired for a _loooong_ time. Maybe even overnight. She growled, making the black-green-purple glow around her hands grow larger and slightly more purple as she tugged the froggy's ability-to-move and dragged it _aaall_ the way back to its body. The green light around its skin flowed off, the red injury closed up and...

_Ribbit!_

Everyone around Sara and the frog backed away when it hopped around erratically, ribbiting wildly. A few of the girls screamed. "Cool!" Leira shouted.

"See?" she told a pale-looking Jaron as she let her magic relax, settling for keeping the frog in one place. "It wasn't dead, it was just tired!" She looked at the frog and made it move, hopping towards Jaron. Everyone the frog got close to - including him - backed up from it, and some of the other kids screamed as they ran away.

Then Sara heard a new voice. A much, much older voice. "What's going on - by the Light!"

Sara's eyes widened and her magic flickered out. Now that she wasn't controlling it, the frog ran out of her sight. "Uh oh."

* * *

Katherine Smithers

"Add in ten percent tax," she muttered to herself, scratching numbers on the paper.

It was late at night, and Sara had gone to bed with less fuss than normal. The day had been relatively uninteresting; her husband had come from his job at the forge, Sara said nothing interesting happened at school, and then she played some puzzle-solving games with her daughter until it came time for dinner. Then after that Sara had gone to bed, Alex went to the living room to read the paper, and Katherine locked herself away to do the bills.

All in all, a pretty average day.

She scribbled down a few more numbers, frowned when the end result was smaller than expected, then smiled again when she went back over and found a mistake. Katherine fixed it, and the number was the proper size; their budget was still well in place.

Her work room was no larger than it had to be, which was to say not large at all. She could lay down and almost reach from one wall to the other, and there was no window so the only lighting came from her lantern. Not exactly the most inspired room of her home, but it was good enough for doing paperwork.

"Alright, so he purchased the new hammer, that was fifty seven silver, um, and that becomes sixty two silver and seventy copper..."

_Knock knock knock!_

Katherine's head looked up. Someone was at the door? _This_ late? She frowned and stood, heading out of her little room to reach the door. However her husband had gotten there first and opened it before her, so she got an eyeful of their visitor.

The man was, next to her giant of a husband, absolutely dwarfed. He wore dark blue robes with gray highlights, indicating he was a spellcaster of some kind. He was also quite old, and his white hair was being engulfed by a large bald spot. His eyes were baggy, his skin wrinkled, and he leaned heavily on a staff of gently glowing wood. He was in the midst of talking " - representing the Stormwind Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences. May I come in?"

"Sure, please. I'm sorry but we just had dinner, so I'm afraid - "

As the man hobbled inside, he held up the hand that wasn't clutching the staff. "Oh no, no worries. I ate on the way here, no need to work yourselves up over me." He looked around when the door closed behind him. "Lovely place."

"Thank you, sir... ?" Katherine asked, trailing off.

"Magister Halwin, pleased to meet you. You must be Alexander and Katherine Smithers." He held out his hand and they both shook it in turn. For his age, he had a surprisingly tough grip. "Now, I feel I should get to the point. Did a Mrs. Bracepin speak to you two, some time this week?"

"No," Alex said.

"Not to me," she replied.

"Oh, well that figures." He moved into their living room. There was a couch and two chairs facing said couch, creating a triangle of furniture in the midst of a green carpet and tan walls.

He took a seat on the couch, resting his staff along his lap. Katherine and her husband also each took a seat next to each other. "See, apparently a week ago she saw your daughter, Sara I believe, using magic during recess." Katherine's heart leaped into her throat. That had been a _week_ ago? And Sara hadn't told them? Now people knew that she could use shadow magics even at such a young age? Her skin turned clammy and her hands shook.

"Oh," she whispered.

"Oh," the Magister said in his weary voice. "And then Mrs. Bracepin sent a letter to us describing her abilities, and she sent it along the wrong channels, so there was a big headache trying to figure out where her letter was supposed to go, and then my colleagues voted to send me, an old man, to come talk to you about your daughter's future in magical education." He held up both hands and gave them a little shake. " _Logic!_ Oh, but I shouldn't be ranting to you, you've done absolutely nothing to deserve that. Um, where was I?"

"What's this about Sara showing off her magic?" Katherine asked. Alex elbowed her gently, and she looked at him. "Well he _knows,_ doesn't he?"

"Yes, that's right. Mr. and Mrs. Smithers, are you aware of just what sort of magic your daughter performed?"

"Well," Alex said nervously. "She performs some form of shadow magic, she'd been doing it since she was old enough to walk. We take her out into the park and she uses her shadow magic on ants, or small animals, and kills them."

Magister Halwin nodded. "Kills them, hmm. Interesting, because the letter Mrs. Bracepin sent describes just the opposite. Apparently during recess, one of the kids had found a dead frog, and the teacher says that your daughter brought it back to life. Not undead or anything, just straight up resurrected."

Katherine blinked and leaned forward. "Pardon me, Mr. Halwin, but what do you mean resurrected? I don't think I've ever seen Sara do that."

He shrugged. "Eh, that's possible. Whatever the reason, her teacher said in no uncertain terms that your daughter brought the frog back from the dead with relatively little effort." They stared at him in silence while Katherine's mind reeled. Sara could _resurrect things?_ They'd known for a while that she could use shadow magic to slowly kill animals, of course. She'd been doing it for nearly five years now. But they'd never actually seen Sara bring the dead back to life. What else could their daughter do that they didn't know about?

"I see you can understand the enormity of this. Resurrection is a feat and a half; those who wield the Holy Light itself can only return life to the dead in the most particular of cases, and even then it usually comes at great cost. If your daughter is capable, at so young an age, to do this, then we at the Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences feel we would mutually benefit by having her come to study with us. I reviewed her grades in school, they're astounding. Now clearly she's still very young, so they may not be indicative of the future, but if she keeps this up she'd be great to have. Not right now of course, when she grows up obviously."

She and Alex looked at each other, passing a conversation between their eyes. They looked back at the Magister, and it was her husband who spoke. "Don't get me wrong, but this is all very, very sudden."

He smirked and barked a quick laugh. "Yes, the important things in life usually are."

"I suppose, but I thought that the Academy was for mages," Alex explained. "Regardless of Sara's abilities, she uses shadow magic instead. Even if we were to somehow get her accepted, I'm really worried about how her peers would look upon her, or if she would indeed benefit at all."

He nodded. "Perfectly understandable, perfectly understandable. However, I _should_ inform you that the Academy is undergoing major reforms. I don't know how it is out here, but back in Stormwind public opinion of shadow magic is at an all time high thanks to the Kingslayers employing warlocks and priests of the Cult of Forgotten Shadow. They've been pressing for a change to the way Stormwind's magic education functions." His voice hardened ever so slightly. "Officially, I think this is a splendid idea if it results in the Alliance having a stronger and more diverse range of spellcasters to combat threats and research the workings of magic." His voice lightened. "The reforms are not complete _yet,_ obviously, it takes time to do so. But by the time your daughter's grown up and ready to pursue magical education, the Academy will be more, ahem, accepting of teaching the workings of shadow magic. Also, the naga war will be over by then, so she won't need to worry about being drafted into being a battlemage."

"I see," Katherine said. So if Sara did end up deciding she wanted to learn magic, there was that option. "Precisely how much would this cost, should we decide to go through with this?"

The mage waved off her concerns. "Not a copper, not a copper. The Alliance considers magic users to be an investment, one that usually pays off. Consider the following for your daughter. She is seven, and she can bring dead animals back to life. Not only is she far, far younger than most first-time magic users and the youngest I have personally seen, she is capable of magic that casually defies a fundamental principle of nature. I would place good money on her being able to revive larger things than animals in the future, if you know what I mean. She could save thousands and thousands of lives with that ability, if she wishes to improve it."

Alex let out a long breath. "This is... quite something to think about. I mean, she's still eleven years off from that. And she might not even want to learn magic."

"Well, this offer is entirely optional, of course." He chuckled dryly. "After all, you're not paying us or anything. Nobody is going to force your daughter to come to the Academy, however I really do think it would be highly beneficial to her. Self-taught magic tends to be very..." He held up a hand and turned it side to side. "Very _eh._ "

"We'll keep it in mind, Magister," she said.

"Right! Well, now that we've got that all sorted out and... eh, wait a second. You didn't know she resurrected the frog?"

"Sara never told us," Alex said. "Neither did her teacher."

The mage scoffed. "Figures. Little kids don't want their parents to know, and teacher wants the guys in charge all the way in Stormwind to do her work." He stood, using his staff to help himself up. "Well, I don't want to be keeping you two up."

"Oh no, it's okay," Katherine said.

"Well thank you anyway for your time. Do speak to your daughter about this when she wakes up, will you? We'd love to have someone as talented as her, after all."

"Do you have any place to stay for the night?" she asked.

Magister Halwin smiled at them. "Thank you for the concern dear, but I'll just teleport on home." He hobbled his way out of the living room and towards the door. "I hope you all have a good night," he said once at the door. Alex sprang up and held it open for the old mage, who made his way out. "Thank you, thank you. Please consider what I've said." Then the mage held up the hand not clutching the staff. Both hands were wrapped in pulsing, bright blue orbs. They sent out a sound like chimes. Then there was a brilliant flash, and when it faded the only thing left of the mage was the sharp smell of ozone.

Alex closed the door, and looked at her. "Sara lied to us."

"She did. I _thought_ something was bothering her that day, but I just figured she was being teased by someone."

"You know, we're going to have to punish her for disobeying us. Any idea?" he asked as they made their way back to the living room.

"No dessert for a week," she said right away. "Also, she's grounded for three days, so no going over to Leira's house."

Her husband shifted in the chair and nodded. "That sounds reasonable for showing off _shadow magic_ in front of her class. So... do you think this is a good idea?"

She leaned back and placed a hand over her face. "I don't know, honey. I mean, sure it sounds great, and it'd be great for Sara to learn to use her magic for something productive, instead of torturing animals to death. But on the other hand, I'm not so sure about these 'reforms'. They can't be that long in development if we haven't heard of them, they may not even go through." She groaned and dragged the hand down her face. "We've still got eleven years before we have to make that decision, though. There's just too much that could change between now and then."

"True, true. More immediately though, I think tomorrow I'm going to go have a little chat with Mrs. Bracepin. See why she thought we shouldn't know that our daughter can bring animals back from the _dead._ " He shook his head. "Scary to think of."

"You're telling me. The dead should stay just that, dead. And Sara, she apparently doesn't even understand what she did. She doesn't _think_ anything about it. I'm worried, darling. What if her magic gets stronger? What _else_ is she going to be able to do?"

"At least she's not creating undead," he said with a grin.

Katherine groaned. "Don't joke about this." She sat up. "I'm going back to work, and then I'm going to sleep. It's late, I'm tired, and I don't want to think about this anymore. Can you handle Sara in the morning?"

He gave her a thumbs up. "You got it. I'm heading to bed, meet me when you're done?"

They both stood and she walked over to him, giving her husband a quick kiss. "You got it."


	5. Chapter 4: Mind Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

Other people in her school liked to talk about what they were going to be when they grew up. Some wanted to be great wizards and sorcerers. Others wanted to teach, or go into engineering. One girl, inspired by Sara's shadow magic, was probably going to be a warlock. Leira was bent on learning sword fighting to be a great soldier for the Alliance.

Sara reclined in her bed and sighed. Grew up. Mom and Dad would laugh quietly in their heads if they heard her say that, thinking 'Oh, she's still just a teenager, and she thinks she's all grown up'. Well in Sara's opinion she was already more 'grown up' than most grown ups! Just wait until she turned eighteen in six years. The world wouldn't know what hit it.

Glancing down at the book on her chest, Sara grabbed it and held it up. She'd gotten to the part about phobias, and it was a fascinating read. She wondered just what sort of trauma - if it even needed to be that extreme - could cause someone to be pathologically afraid of people staring at them. How would that look in their brains? How would the _lines_ flicker in someone with that fear?

How could she make them fear it?

Sara placed her psychology book face down, not caring if the pages wrinkled, and swung out of bed. The motion kicked up a cloud of dust particles from her bed, which she resolved to clean later. Making her way past her bookshelf, her drawing supplies, vanity, and her wardrobe, she came across a tiny cage. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of animal, but looked at the mouse anyway. "Hey there little guy," she teased. The mouse wasn't moving, which was a shame. It was _her_ fault, she knew, but why should she buy proper food and medical care for a little animal when she could just bring it back to life whenever it died?

With barely a thought, she resurrected it.

Mom and Dad made too big a deal about it. It was a _mouse_ for crying out loud! It was so small and unimportant she could bring it back to life even if it had been dead for a month.

"Ready for another test?" she asked the nervously squeaking mouse. She called up her magic and focused on the rodent's brain. There were still too many criss-crossing lines for her to make sense of it all, but practice made perfect.

First of all, she paralyzed the mouse by _snipping_ the line that lead to the motion part of its brain. She'd put it back later.

"Okay, now..." She looked towards the collection of lines that played a role in the mouse deciding if something was friend or foe. Sara readied her magic...

_Knock knock knock!_

Yelping, she cut off the shadowy orbs around her hands and left the mouse paralyzed. She ran back to bed as the door creaked open and hid under the covers. She held up her book and opened to a random page, one about developmental changes. A moment later, her mom stuck in her head to her room.

"Sara, lunch time. Come downstairs and get something to eat."

"Okay Mom," she said while still under the covers.

"Good. And for goodness sake get dressed, it's the middle of the day." Just as quickly as she'd come, her Mom left and closed the door behind her.

Sara rolled her eyes and mouthed, _'get dressed, it's the middle of the day'_ but she still got back out of bed and went to her wardrobe. She put on a brown shirt, brown pants, and brown skirt, all color-matched, as well as shoes. Once that was done she opened up the door and went down the stairs two at a time, jumping the last four with a - to her - earth shattering slam.

"Sara, honey," her father said from elsewhere in the house. "Not so loud. You'll break your legs one of these days."

"I'm fine," she protested, walking through the house until she skidded into the dining room. Her dad was already there, dressed sharply for some reason or another with the newspaper in his hands. "What's for lunch?" she asked as she took a seat across from him.

"Eggs and bacon," Dad said as Mom slid a plate containing them in between them. The plate also had... "Bread too, you need grains."

"Yes Dad," she grumbled as she took her fork and slid over two eggs and three slices of bacon... and after a dirty look from her dad she also got a slice of whole wheat bread. She hated whole wheat bread. It tasted so much worse than the white, fluffy bread they could get at the store, which didn't feel nearly as... as _heavy_ as the icky brown bread. Still, Sara was hungry, so she ate up quickly and eventlessly. When she was done, she pushed herself away from the table.

"Okay, I'm done. Can I go back to my room now?" she asked. When her parents both said 'Yes' she bolted, heading up the stairs and back into her room, alone with the mouse.

She loomed over it and smiled.

"Alright, where were we?" she asked, calling up her magic. "Right, scopophobia." Sara looked into the rodent's mind, and picked out the friend-foe lines. She wracked her brain, trying to figure out how to make it see anything looking at the mouse as _foe._ Sara looked into the part of its brain that processed sight, and thought of linking them together.

After about half an hour of trial and error, Sara was sure she'd gotten it down. She focused her magic harder, and began drawing new links in the paralyzed mouse's brain. She made them tight, and stepped back. "Alright, attempt one." Then Sara reconnected the mouse's ability to move, and it began to move and squeak crazily. Sara flopped down on her bed, waiting for the mouse to calm down. Then she made her way back to it, and stared at the small creature.

The mouse stared back at her with beady eyes. Sara walked to the left, and the mouse followed her. Then she moved to the right, and it followed her. "No, not good." She wrapped its brain with her shadow magic again, looking for the error she'd made. Before long she found that she'd accidentally connected the concept of staring to the motion section of its brain instead of the friend-foe section. She fixed that error.

The moment the new, correct links were in place the mouse took one look at her and ran to the corner of its cage. It scratched at the bars, paused to look at Sara and, seeing that she was still staring at it, went back to attempting escape.

"Success," she said. Then she wrapped the rodent in her magic and overloaded it. Green lights flickered around it, and it dropped dead. "Alright, next on the agenda." She walked over to her vanity and opened a drawer. Inside was a handful of darts. Taking one of them in hand, Sara looked to her bed or more specifically, the dartboard hanging just above it. Sara stepped forward and held up the dart. She aimed, aimed again, then threw it.

Walking over to the board, she pulled it off and looked at what she'd written on the section she'd hit. "Walk in the woods, sounds good."

Sara took off her indoor shoes and replaced them with thicker shoes designed for outdoors. She stormed back out of her room, down the stairs, and towards the back door. "I'm going for a walk!" she shouted. "Love you, bye!" Then, without waiting for a response, she was out the door.

Greenvale was fairly busy, at least as busy as a small town on the borders of Elwynn could be. Adults walked briskly and oh-so-stiffly from one place to another, and a crowd of snot-nosed little brats were playing some stupid game. She went towards the park, which was mostly empty except for a few adults playing with young kids, and from there she vanished into the woods.

Her skirt got caught a few times on branches, and now and again she almost tripped, but over all Sara had little trouble walking through the woods. She tried making her way to a rocky clearing, where boulders had fallen together in an unusual formation. She usually liked to exercise her magic there. She was a lot stronger than when she was a little kid; magic was like a muscle, after all. The more someone used it, the stronger it got. Sara made sure to use it whenever she could, but it meant she had to get away from civilization to do so.

The trees let through little light, so it was dark and cool, just the way she liked it. The air smelled of mulch and decaying leaves. Sara couldn't see any animals, but she did hear them running away from her as she walked. Before too long she arrived at the boulder pile.

The boulders looked sort of like a bowl, if you squinted really hard. Large slabs leaning on each other, covered in dead black moss and something that looked like rust, and in the middle where she couldn't quite see, the rocks formed a hole. The grass around it was brown and brittle, the trees shriveled and bare. If she looked closely, she could see cracks in some of the larger stones, as if they'd been hit with a giant hammer.

To Sara's surprise though, she heard someone else in the bowl. It sounded like they were exercising. She thought she recognized their voice, too. She walked to the bowl and started climbing up on it, taking care not to slip and hit her head. Sara got to the top of the five yard boulder pile and stared down at the middle.

Leira stared back up at her. "Sara! I didn't expect to see you here." Leira wore a black vest underneath chain mail, and she had a shortsword in her hands that looked like a two-handed sword, since it was sized for adults instead of twelve year-olds. Her black hair was shiny, her horns were curved backwards instead of to the side like her mother's, and her skin was wet with sweat. There were white lines on the stones, and some of the stones looked like they'd been _pushed_ outwards by some massive force that caused them to scrape across the ground.

Sara smiled back and sat, crossing her legs. "What're you doing here, Leira?"

"I usually come here to train," she said. Suddenly she held out her sword, then moved it around in a few formations that Sara knew nothing about. "This place is pretty nice and quiet. Weird about the grass, though. And the rocks."

She rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, that's actually cause of me. I exercise my magic here. Pushes back the rocks just a bit, and some of it leaks out through the cracks and kills the grass."

"Really?" Leira looked at the rocks. "Yikes, Sara." She tossed her sword up on the rocks and climbed up to Sara's right. She sat down next to her, her tail moving back and forth on the rock. "So, you use this place too, huh? What are the odds?"

She shrugged. "Well, it's a good place." She grinned wickedly. "Wonder who else uses it that we don't know about. Can you imagine Michael coming here and pretending to use frost spells?" They both giggled a bit at the image of the boy pretending to throw around frost bolts.

Leira wiped her brow. "I can picture it, the dork. So, how long've you been using this place?"

"I think I found it on..." Sara thought. "The fifth of January two years ago. Yeah, that seems about right. What about you?"

"Uh, I dunno. About a year, I guess." Leira looked behind her at the deadened plant life surrounding it. "So... you did that."

"Yeah, I've got a lot of magic now." She let black smoke flicker around her hands, which made Leira shiver. "Can't wait to see what I'll have when I go to Stormwind." Sara turned off her magic and paused to think about what would be polite to say. "So, how's training going for you?"

Leira frowned and looked away from her. "That's actually something I wanted to talk to you about. You know how I've been wanting to fight, be a soldier? Well, I'm actually going to be a squire for a warrior. Not like I want to, it's actually happening."

"Really? For the Liberality Confederacy?" she asked.

The draenei deflated and shifted her legs, causing her hooves to scrape against the rock. "Well, no. I'm not Kingslayer material, but I _am_ going to be the squire for a Mr. Huan Earthsong in the Chimes of A'dal."

She'd never heard of him, and she'd never heard of the guild. "That's great!" Sara said. "I'm so happy for you, Leira!"

"Yeah, well, there's one problem." Leira looked over at her. "I'm going to have to leave for Ironforge to be his squire."

She blinked. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"I'm moving, Sara. Just me, my parents are gonna stay here but I'm moving to Ironforge to do this. I don't know when I'll get to see you again."

Sara's heart felt cold. She stared at Leira unbelievingly. "... what?" she whispered. "But, I thought, Leira this isn't... y-you can't," she breathed.

"I'll write you letters," she said quickly. "And I might be able to visit on Winter Veil, but no promises. I'm not sure squires get time off."

"You're leaving me alone," she whispered.

"This would've happened anyway when you went to Stormwind," Leira mentioned.

"Yeah but that was, t-that was going to be in six years, not now!" she shouted, throwing up her hands. "This is so unfair!"

"Hmph," Leira grunted. "Here I thought you'd be happy for me."

"I am!" Sara countered. "It's just, I don't want to be alone. Everyone else in school's terrified of me, they think if they talk to me..." She held up her left hand and brought her magic to it. The flickering shadow energy began to change as Sara pushed more power into it, turning into a swirling orb of glowing purple smoke. "... that I'll _blast_ them," she said, thrusting the hand out to the side to release the energy. A thick beam of violet energy surged outwards, smacking the dirt and killing the surrounding five yards of grass. It was far from the most magic she'd ever released in a single burst.

Leira shivered as Sara's magic ended. "Well, are they wrong?"

"Of course they're wrong!" she said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Do you have any idea how much trouble I'd get in if I blasted someone?" She lowered her arms. "When are you leaving?" she muttered.

"In a week. I was gonna come over to your house today to tell but, well, you know."

Sara looked down at the bottom of the boulder-bowl. "I'm really happy for you, Leira. I hope you have a lot of fun with Mr. Earthsong." She swung her legs around and jumped off the boulders, heading into the forest.

There was a crash and Leira ran up to her. "Hey, Sara I'm sorry, but - "

"No!" Sara said, turning on her. "No, you..." She pinched her brow, then let it go. "This isn't your fault. I knew what you wanted to do, and I should've expected this from the start. It's just, damn it. How often do you think you can write?" She turned back away from Leira and started walking through the woods.

Leira kept up with her. "Probably every week or so. You can write back to me as well."

"I guess it's not so bad, then." She pushed past a branch, then snapped it off the tree with her magic so it wouldn't swing back and hit Leira. "What're you gonna be doing as a squire?"

"Well, I'm gonna be learning how to fight from him. Help with transporting gear and those sorts of things. It's basically an apprenticeship, just not called that. Gonna cut down on how much, like, regular schooling I can learn but really, I think Mr. Earthsong can teach me the important stuff and not just what we learn."

"Ugh," Sara said. "Tell me about it. Who cares about the such-and-such member of the Arathi?"

Leira chuckled. "Too bad you're still gonna have to learn about all that."

Sara sighed. "Yeah, I guess. So. You're leaving in a week."

She nodded. "Yep. On the Friday before I leave we're going to have some sort of going-away party, I already talked it over with the teacher, we're gonna have games and food and everything."

Narrowing her eyes, Sara turned away to inspect a tree as if it were interesting. "So you talked with her before me."

"She's the teacher, Sara. I kinda have to." Leira stopped talking for a moment as they squeezed between some trees that were close together. "You're being a big baby about this. It's not like I'm dying or anything."

"I am not being a baby," she groused. "I'm just upset that you just sprung this on me with no warning."

"Well then how would I have warned you?" Leira asked, lightly punching Sara's left arm. "Baby."

She winced, and rubbed her arm. "Oh shut up."

They kept walking while Sara processed what Leira had said. She was going to leave. Leave her alone with all the idiots in school and town, to go pursue her dream. Just like Sara would've been leaving her in six years. Sara didn't really know what to think about -

"So what were you doing out here anyway?"

"I thought I'd go for a walk," Sara said. "No real reason. Funny I ran into you," she sighed.

"Yeah. Funny." Leira nudged her. "Hey, cheer up. It's not the end of the world."

_Heh,_ Sara thought. _No, I guess it's not._

* * *

Sara walked the road that led to school, alone. There were some seventh graders in front of her and some others behind her as they made their way to the building.

Once inside, Sara made for Mrs. Wirn's classroom, which was already half full. The classroom for seventh grade was a homey brick red, and the desks were all arranged in alternating rows, such that no desk had another desk directly in front of it.

The atmosphere was noisy and happy, with her _peers_ throwing parchment airplanes and generally being dumb in the few minutes they had before class started. Sara was paid about as much attention as everyone else who entered; she got no more than a brief glance to see who she was before the student in question went back to whatever they'd been doing before.

Sara's seat was in the back left corner, so she could keep an eye on everyone else. She shrugged off her backpack, slid it under her seat, then rested an elbow on the desk so she could place her head in her hand.

She glanced around; the teacher wasn't in yet, and judging by the clock mounted over the doorway, wouldn't be for another five minutes. So, Sara took her hands and put them in her pant's pockets, then began quietly channeling her powers. It didn't make any noise, but she could feel the black mist pulsing and squirming about in her pocket like a heartbeat. Sara looked around the class, then focused on Annabelle. Quietly and carefully she began to fill the inside of her head with her magic. It didn't do anything _to_ her, it just let Sara see the lines of her thoughts. She found the hearing center of her brain, right around her ears, and imagined extending another line from her brain out, all the way through the air, and into Sara's own hearing center.

_'So then I said to him,'_ she heard. _' - I said to him, really? Fifteen, are you sure? But he was all like, yeah, that's what you get when you subtract both sides. Anyway I'm gonna get to studying, talk to you after class. Damn it I hate that buffoon. And there's that freak Sara looking at me thinking I don't know -'_ Sara narrowed her eyes and made a note to hurt her before class was done. _' - and ugh, class hasn't even started yet. This is the worst. And then there's - '_

Sara leaned back and listened to Annabelle's thoughts, as she went from talking about her tutor to quietly thinking about how boring class would be, even though she'd heard a rumor there was going to be a party. For her part, Sara kept channeling her shadow magic in secret: normally new lines would remain, but if she tried to connect one outside of a brain like she was now, she needed to keep feeding magic into it. Luckily she had a lot of magic, so much she'd never run out in her life.

Eventually she got bored of Annabelle's thoughts and stopped keeping the link between them active. She looked around, and extended her magic into Alerd so she could read his mind instead.

Like always, her peers never really had anything interesting on their minds. They were always just focused on themselves, thinking nothing but about how things related to _them_ and that was boring.

She hopped between people to read and, on the fifth person, Leira came in. A quick glance around confirmed that Leira was the last one in, with Mrs. Wirn - a twenty year old with blonde hair done up in a ponytail and laugh lines even at her age - at her heels.

Leira came back and sat in the seat next to her, holding a blue hand out to her. Sara reached over and clasped the hand. "Hey," she said.

"Hey yourself," Leira whispered as she let go. "I already talked to Mrs. Wirn about it, we're gonna have the party at the end of school."

"Okay," she said. "Cool." Sara turned her attention forward to Mrs. Wirn, and cast her mind reading spell on the adult, since they usually had more interesting thoughts. Leira shivered when she finished the spell, but then Sara leaned back and started listening while the teacher also started talking.

"Good morning everyone," Mrs. Wirn said, her thoughts echoing her words. "I hope you all had a good week. Now, everyone take out your history books and open to page two-seventeen. Remember, if you forgot your book you'll just have to share with someone else." Everyone opened up their books. Sara looked at it lazily; they were up to the story of Medivh and how he apparently got possessed by some big demon guy.

While Mrs. Wirn read, or had members of the class read paragraphs aloud, Sara continued to listen in to her thoughts. Usually when people were talking their only thoughts were what they were saying, and Mrs. Wirn wasn't an exception. When she _wasn't_ talking, however, her thoughts wandered and Sara picked up on them.

_'Are the cupcakes still in my desk? Just a quick glance yes. Alright, Leira's done reading. Sara, please read the next paragraph.'_

Sara blinked and drew herself back to the real world. "Huh? Sure." She looked down. "When Medivh awoke over twenty years later, Sargeras began influencing his thoughts with subtle pushes to make him increasingly sadistic and cruel. Eventually, Sargeras was able to push Medivh to seek the destruction of humans in order to attain true power, and further pushed him to communicate with Gul'dan on Draenor, who was himself being controlled by Kil'jaeden the Deceiver, and worked to create one of Azeroth's most infamous magical constructions."

"Excellent," the teacher said. "Annabelle, please read the next paragraph."

Sara tuned out and went back to mind reading. Mrs. Wirn had thought about cupcakes. She hadn't thought about what _kind_ they were, which was good, but now Sara knew there were going to be cupcakes. With a frown, she stopped keeping the link to her teacher's mind active and pulled her hand out of her pocket.

With agonizing slowness the day's history class went by, and they'd learned all sorts of 'interesting' things about Medivh.

After that was Common class, which was stupid because they already knew how to speak and read Common. Bunch of lessons on how to write pretty.

And after that, ugh, a math sheet! _A math sheet!_ With quadratic equations and stuff. _Eugh._ She envied Leira for getting to be a squire and leave all that behind.

When she was finished filling out the last answer, put down her pencil and turned the paper face down. She snuck a glance to her right. Leira looked back at her and rolled her glowing eyes. Sara stuck her right hand back into her pocket and put up a link with Leira's mind. This wasn't a mind-reading spell though, she respected Leira's privacy and all that. It was more elaborate, linking the language and hearing centers together. The moment the spell was done, Leira jumped.

_'By the Light, WHAT?!'_

_'Relax, it's just me.'_ Leira glanced at her, but remained silent. _'Just imagine talking to me.'_

_'Like this? Sara what did you_ do? _'_

_'Eh, no big deal. So, some problems huh?'_

_'I'm still working on it!'_

Sara blinked, and glanced again. Sure enough, Leira looked to be nearing the end. _'Oh. Sorry. I'll be quiet.'_

She sat back in her seat and glanced around the classroom, looking around quietly. About half the class was still working on the worksheet, and Mrs. Wirn sat at her desk with a book open in her hands. Glancing at the desk, she wondered where the cupcakes were hidden, and what flavor they were.

Leira put down her pencil and turned over her test. _'Is this still working?'_

_'Yep.'_

_'Jeesh Sara, this feels_ weird. _Like you're pouring water down the back of my shirt.'_

_'Sorry. I'll have to work on that. So, that worksheet huh?'_

_'Eh, it wasn't that bad. Why, was it hard for you?'_

_'I had some trouble with number five, did you get A or B?'_

_'I got B.'_

Sara mentally cursed, not sending it to Leira. _'Oh. Oops.'_

_'... so since when could you do telepathy?'_

_'Well I just have to change my mind reading spell a bit - '_

_'Your WHAT?!'_

_'I don't use it on you, if that's what you're thinking,'_ she said hastily.

Leira turned to glare at her. _'And that makes it okay? Sara you can't just read people's thoughts! That's not a nice thing to do.'_

_'Blah blah, who cares? It's not hurting anyone.'_

_'You're - ! Sometimes, Sara, I swear. Alright, ignoring the whole 'creepy mind reading shadow magic', this is pretty cool. Where'd you get the idea?'_

_'Was reading ahead in history, apparently the Lich King used telepathy. Sounded pretty_ _handy.'_ Not that Sara was going to work on it any more. She had, like, a bunch of other stuff to do.

_'Alright. Oh, looks like everyone's done. Hey, can you turn this off? I need to go do something.'_

_'Kay.'_ She relaxed her hands and her shadow magic fizzled out. At the same time...

At some point while she was talking with Leira, Mrs. Wirn had gotten up to the front of the room. "Alright class, please pass your worksheets up to the front." Sara did so, watching her paper ride to the front of the room. Mrs. Wirn collected them, and looked out over everyone. "Alright everyone, instead of regular lunch today we have a surprise. Leira has something she wants to share with all of us, and then she brought snacks with her."

Leira got out of her seat and walked to the front of the class. She stood infront and to the side of Mrs. Wirn, her hands clasped in front of herself and her tail swaying side to side. "Sooo, as you all know, there are a lot of careers open in military options on Azeroth. I sent in an applec - application to a guild called the Chimes of A'dal, and one of their warriors wrote back, saying I could be his squire!"

The class around Sara chittered excitedly.

"His name's Mr. Huan Earthstong, and he's a pandaren. I'll be helping him carry his armor and his weapons, and he'll be teaching me how to use them! He's coming to pick me up next week, which means this is the last day I'm in school here. I'm gonna be leaving on the weekend, so my mom made cupcakes and I brought them in!" More excited talking.

Leira went to the teacher's desk and started to ruffle around. Meanwhile, the lady stepped forward. "Alright everyone, now to celebrate Leira's last day in Greenevale we're going to have a half day! That means no geography studies, no Orcish class, and at the end we have early dismissal. Sound good?"

There were a lot of happy hums and nods just as Leira emerged from the desk with a metal tray in her hands. On it were about twenty five cupcakes. Brown ones, yellow ones and pink ones, covered in frosting and wrapped in purple-pink paper. Sara's mouth watered as Leira walked through the class, handing out the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry cupcakes to everyone. Eventually Leira came to her, with three cupcakes left. She reached for the first one she saw, grabbing a chocolate cupcake.

"Thanks," she said as she started peeling off the paper.

"Mmhmm," Leira said as she went to hand out the last two.

Once she was done, she sat down in her seat and Mrs. Wirn continued. Apparently while Sara had been distracted, she'd procured cups and set out a water tanker about twice the size of her head at the front of the class. "Now class, everyone enjoy your food. If you want drinks they're up here, and there are games on top of that shelf," she said as she pointed to a closet filled with various rulers and books.

The class broke up, people getting up to pull board games off the shelves, or moving their desks into circles to talk with each other. For her part, Sara got up and walked to the front of the class to get some water. She sat back next to Leira, who looked at her. "Hey Sara, I'm gonna go over there and play Demons and Titans, want to come with?"

"Nah, I'm good," she said, leaning back and taking a bite out of her cupcake.

"You sure?"

"Really, I'm fine. You have fun, don't worry about me." She decided to throw in a wink. "It's your going away party, enjoy yourself."

"Well, if you say so. Thanks, Sara." Leira got up, cupcake in hand, and went to go play with a group of three.

"Yeah, no problem," she muttered, leaning back in her seat to enjoy her food. Really, she was happy for Leira! Why wouldn't she be? The draenei was getting to go off and do what she wanted to do in life, leaving Sara to remain behind in Greenvale with people who either hated her or were terrified of her, remain there for another six years before _she_ also got to do what she wanted. She was happy for Leira. So. Very. Happy.

Sighing, she swallowed another bite and took a sip of water. Okay, so maybe she was a bit sore. But there was nothing she could do, and at least they'd keep in touch with letters. Maybe when they were adults, with all the training and schooling behind them, they could visit. That'd be nice.

Sara smirked. And wait till Leira got a hold of her then. She wondered what another six-plus years of magic and schooling would do for her.


	6. Chapter 5: Hitting the Town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

"Do you have your map?" Mom asked.

"Yes, Mom," Sara said as she packed away a toothbrush. "I have the map, I have enough gold to last until I get a job, I have water, I have food, I have my address, and I have my entry ticket to the Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences. I have stationery, I have clean clothes, I have everything I need. Now stop messing with my hair! It's going to get blown around anyway."

"Oh, all right," she said, taking a step back and letting Sara get her hair out of her face. "Sure you have everything?"

She threw back her head. " _Yes, Mom!_ " She stood up and slung the pack over her shoulders. "I need to go now, I'm going to get there late if I don't start going!"

"Oh okay. One more hug," her mother said.

"Fine," she said before going in for the hug.

"And for me too," Dad said from next to her. Sara rolled her eyes but gave her giant of a father a goodbye hug too before pulling away and kissing his cheek. She did the same to her mother, then turned towards the door.

"Okay, now I _really_ need to go. Love you, I'll write, bye!" She opened the door and swung out into Greenvale. There were a lot of people out and about, and the sky was gray with recent rain. It smelled of mud and fresh air, the former of which forced Sara to jog instead of run, lest she slip. Sara made good time through Greenvale, past the schoolhouse, past the smithy, until she reached the stables.

The stables smelled, predictably, of horse, and made Sara wrinkle her nose. There were a few of the things trotting around out back, in various colors and sizes, though her attention was focused on the man standing out front of the wooden building. She approached Stablemaster Kenrod, clearing her throat. "Hello, I spoke to you - "

" - about your ride to Stormwind," the middle aged man said with an even tone. "I know, come along the back, I've got her already saddled up."

"Thank you," she said excitedly, following him into the building and out the back where several of the horses were walking about slowly. One in particular was tied to a post, a dark brown horse with a lighter saddle over its back. "This the one?" she asked as she approached the horse. It flicked an ear at her approach.

"Yep. That'll be twenty five gold and thirty silver, miss."

She reached into her pants pocket, hiding her sour face, and pulled out twenty six gold to give to him. He handed her back seventy silver, and she approached the horse. "So, I just get on?" she asked. She'd never taken a horse travel path before, and she wasn't looking forward to it. It was going to take a week to get to Stormwind, and she was dreading that week.

When he said yes, she put her left foot in the stirrup, hoisted herself up with some difficulty and got herself settled into the saddle. "Be safe out there, miss!" he said, before untying the horse. He gave some verbal order, and the horse began to _run._ Sara had to brace herself for a moment, then leaned over slightly to get her balance. The horse moved along a dirt road, picking up speed until it was galloping along a path. She left the stables behind, the trained horse moving past the buildings of Greenvale.

All too quickly Sara left her town behind, and her stomach knotted in her chest. She'd never truly left Greenvale before. Sure she's played and exercised in the forest immediately around it, but that was different. She could always go back at any time. Now though, she was really, truly gone. If she ever wanted to return home she would need to invest a lot of time, effort, and money into it.

Ten minutes into the trip, with the wind in her face and trees streaming past her, Sara was already homesick.

The horseride was rough and unpleasant, but eventually the howling of air and thunder of hooves turned into background noise, and Sara allowed her mind to wander. At first her trains of thought didn't last long, she'd start thinking about something like the sunny weather and she'd immediately think about the woods around her before cycling around.

Slowly though, as the trip wore on and on, her thoughts became more settled, and she allowed herself to fantasize about all sorts of things. She imagined great thunderstorms marching across the land, she imagined watching as mountains rose up, their stone flowing like water. Sara entertained herself with those daydreams for a long, long time, even as the sun made its trek across the sky.

Hours passed, and she started to get sore from riding. Sara tried to take her mind off it by reaching into her pack and pulling out a waterskin. The bumpy ride made taking a drink rather tricky, but she managed it. Then noon came around and she took out a bag of assorted nuts and ate them for lunch. With that done, she went back to idle daydreaming.

Then she got bored of daydreaming, and wished she could use her magic on something. She didn't dare try to, though. There was a decent chance she'd spook the horse _before_ she could use her magic to calm it, and then where would she be? No, Sara didn't dare to use her magic. Which just meant she had to sit there, on the horse, with the wind and the bugs blowing in her face, for hours on end.

Nothing happened beyond Sara shifting uncomfortably and trying to distract herself from the various annoyances of the horse ride, not for a few hours. Eventually though, the trees streaming past either side of her moved outward. The road thickened and the horse slowed down until it cantered briskly into a new town.

_A new town,_ she thought. She'd never been to another town besides Greenvale - Tellaville didn't count, really - and it was... disappointingly similar. All the buildings looked the same in the evening light, and if it weren't for the different layout she would've sworn she was back in her hometown. The horse made its way to the town's local stables, where an old man with graying hair was already out and waiting for her.

"Hello there, incoming from Greenvale?"

She gave a weak grunt of assent, and let him help her out of the saddle. Once back on solid ground her legs wobbled and she nearly collapsed, but the stablemaster held her up. "Thanks," she muttered after she got her footing back. "And I'll have another horse at seven in the morning, right?"

"That's right, miss. Hope you enjoy your stay in Varishire."

"I'm sure I will," she muttered as she wobbled her way out of the stables. She passed through the town's various buildings without paying them much attention, and purposefully ignoring the curious glances the residents shot her. Sara - after a brief detour to find an outhouse - only had one building in mind, and that was the local inn.

_Hmm,_ she thought. _This is also the first time I'll have set foot in an inn._ Biting her lip, she slowed down as she approached the warm, welcoming building. What would she find inside? How would she be treated? She considered turning around and heading... heading where? There was nowhere for her to go. Sara's stomach knotted; this was the only option open to her. Sara took a deep breath, and headed inside.

The smell of warm bread and drinks filled her nose, and a surge of heat pulsed through her from head to toe. She turned a corner and saw the main room of the inn, with a moderately high ceiling, tables and chairs, and a weakly crackling hearth. Some of the seats were occupied by people she - obviously - didn't recognize, but further back where alcohol was kept was a man dressed in a red shirt with a gray vest over it who she assumed was the innkeeper. Adjusting her pack, she walked up to him.

She smiled warmly at him. "Hello, I'm just in from Greenvale. How much is a one night's board and dinner here?"

He smiled back at her. "Good to see another face here. One night's board is fifty silver for a blanket and a place by the hearth, two gold for a blanket, pillow, and a more secluded area, ten gold for a private room for the night. Dinner, well that depends on what you want, miss. A buttered wheat roll is twenty silver, a half-pound of roast beef is thirty six silver, and a slab of cheddar cheese is just five silver."

Sara considered her money for a moment. "I'll have a blanket and pillow, then two buttered wheat rolls and a slab of cheddar," she said.

He nodded. "Right away, miss." He strode around the counter and shuffled around its contents for a bit before putting her food out on the counter. "Hang on for a moment while I get your accommodations." He walked back around and headed to a storage room in the back, and Sara took the time to count out two gold and forty five silvers, to her dismay. Shortly after she was done the innkeeper returned, with a pale blue bedroll and white pillow in his hands.

"Alright," he said as she took them into her hands. "Your place for the night is over that way," he said, pointing towards Sara's right down a hallway. "Second door on the left."

"Thank you, sir," she said as she took the bedroll and her food in hand. She turned away from him and, once he was behind her, allowed her smile to melt into a scowl. _Ugh._ But at least she had a place to stay for the night, and food to eat. Though she'd need to purchase more water in the morning. Just the act of handing over her money when she didn't have a way to replenish it tore at her, but unless she wanted to forage in the woods there was no way around it. Besides, Sara and her parents had deliberately counted how much she was taking with her, and it factored in those costs.

Knowing that didn't make losing money any easier.

The room she could stay in was warmed by a small hearth tucked away against the wall, and there were several raised rectangular sections of the floor pushed against the wall. A single window let in the sunset's light, and the room was mostly unoccupied. The only other person was a short man with a massive, braided black beard - _a dwarf!_ \- resting on one of the rectangles and reading a book to himself. She stared for a moment because she'd never actually seen a dwarf before, but then remembered herself and chose one of the cleaner looking sections to make her 'bed'.

Once that was done, she sat on the bedroll, warmed by the heated surface underneath, and stretched. After she was done stretching out the aches left from the horseride, she took out the buttered rolls and began to eat. She finished off the first roll and washed it down with water, then she grabbed the other one, put the cheddar inside and ate it as a sandwich.

Unease rested in Sara's stomach, and she placed her pack under her pillow, then rested her head on it. She didn't want anybody stealing it; in that pack was all that she owned, and she would be a fool to let anybody take that from her.

Sara's lower body still ached from the horseride, and she knew it would only get worse. It was seven days to Stormwind on horseback, and here she had only finished day one. The trip was going to be miserable and she dreaded it. But... at the end of the tunnel was Stormwind. She just had to keep that in mind, and push through.

With her dinner finished and the first leg of her trip behind her, Sara looked out the window. It was still early, but she decided it would be best to get some sleep.

* * *

Absolutely everything hurt.

Her head hurt, her neck hurt. Her arms hurt from holding reins, her legs hurt from riding, and her body hurt from the constant jostling. There was no part of Sara's body that did not scream at her in excruciating agony, and she couldn't use her magic to dull the pain lest the horse spook. The light from the sun streamed down harshly, burning her eyes and searing her skin. A griffon flight path would've gotten her to her destination within a day, not a week, but Greenvale wasn't large enough to have more than a horse route, so she had to endure a week of torturous misery.

But none of that mattered. She was in Stormwind.

Beneath the horse's hooves, white cobblestones passed her by. To the sides was a deep moat of glistening water, and closer to her were enormous statues in various poses, casting their shadows upon her. The guards didn't give her any trouble at the gate; why would they? Stormwind wasn't under any sort of lockdown, civilian were free to come and go as they pleased. She'd only encounter _real_ security near King Anduin's throne.

Her horse reached the end of the bridge and galloped to the left, around the bend, and into the Trade District. All at once, Sara's jaw dropped.

The day before she had stopped in Goldshire and rested in the Lion's Pride Inn. She'd thought the town was massive, but the Trade District dwarfed Goldshire and eclipsed Greenvale. People everywhere, of every race of the Alliance. Humans and dwarves, gnomes, night elves, pandaren, draenei, worgen. Open stalls crowded with business, blue-roofed houses with painted signs hanging out front. The smell of mounts and goods and services clung to the air, and the sound of chatter murmured around her like a stream, a discordant river of noise impossible to make out.

The crowd cleared before her horse, which was trained well enough to ignore the riotous noise and make its way to a tiny stable, tucked away between a thread store and a food store. The stablehand, a young man with slick black hair, came to help her down and take the horse to the back of the stable to rest. Once on the ground she fell flat on her ass before he helped her up, and then she gave him a terse thanks and, wobbling, left.

The very first thing Sara did was find a bench and sit on it. It wasn't that she needed _more_ sitting around, but by all that she held dear after a week on horseback her legs just couldn't go on. Once that was done, she took a few minutes of breathing lightly for the pain to subside to a tolerable level. Then, with a groan, she realized she still needed to make her way to the Mage Quarter, find the Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences, write a letter to her parents letting them know she'd arrived, find her area of residence, get something to eat, then find out where she would be studying magic.

_Ugh,_ she thought. _This all better pay off. And I have to get up now._ She winced, but peeled herself off the bench and headed in the direction she thought the Mage Quarter was in. Walking pulled at her tendons and made her wince, but she powered through and, after a few minutes of turns and roundabouts, she left the Trade District and walked along the Canals.

She took a deep breath, breathing in the humid air. The Canals were far less crowded than the Trade District, but there were still so many people it made Sara's head spin. She put a hand in her pocket to secretly set up a mind reading spell on a _night elf,_ and she heard -

_'Let's see, eight nine ten, I have enough gold for the glyph, and enough afterwards to get a snack. I should probably swing over by the Cone of Cold, their new server is really cute. Hmm, probably go for butterscotch ice cream today. Oh, shoot, missed the turn, I'm such an idiot - '_

At that point Sara grew more distant from the night elf and let the magic dissolve. The Cone of Cold, apparently, sold ice cream. Maybe she could get a job there, once she was settled.

Sara soon arrived at a stone bridge and walked across it, passing over the deep, sparkling waters of the Canal. Up ahead she could see purple rooftops, she could smell grass, and she in the distance was a spire rising into the sky. There was no doubt in her mind; she'd found the Mage Quarter.

When she entered, she immediately found that there was much more grass than the Trade District. Rather than being lined with stone, the Mage Quarter was more like a park; the narrow path was flanked on either side by lush green grass. She took a deep breath, smelling the air, then took a moment on a bench to pull out her entry ticket for the Academy to examine it. More specifically she examined the address, memorized it, then headed towards that location.

It took her a while to get there. She had to go near the middle of the Mage Quarter, where flowers were in bloom, mages in robes and warlocks in darker robes walked around and discussed their abilities, druids tended to the flowers, and the spire of the Wizard's Sanctum, the pride and joy of the Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences with its winding spiral ramp and tinted windows, held silent vigil over them all.

Sara kept walking, until she found a large, brownish building. The sign on the outside showed an outstretched hand with a double-layered circle around it. She checked her ticket, and nodded. This was it, the Shadow Magic division. She cracked her neck and, with a quick glance around to make sure nobody was looking her way, gave her magic a quick pulse to remind herself that she was going to take the place by storm. Then she entered the building.

Inside was dark and gloomy, and there were a few paintings hung on the wall of various people in robes. There was a stairway up to her left, and a staircase down to her right. A shelf filled with various bottles made her wonder if the place hadn't been a pub of some kind in the past. A few - presumable - warlocks traveled up and down the stairs in groups of two and three, talking animatedly with each other. Across from Sara was a desk behind which stood a man who was certainly a warlock, clad in dark red robes lined with purple. She strode up to him and placed her entry ticket on the counter, scowling.

"I'm here to learn shadow magic. Where?" she demanded.

"Relax, miss," he said with a knowing smile as he took her ticket in hand, looking it over. After a few minutes he nodded, then reached under his desk to pull out a few sheets of paper inscribed with dense writing. "Ah yes, Sara Smithers. Your schedule is here," he said, pulling out a sheet from under the top one and handing it to her. "This is your area of residence, and this is your key. And I just need you to sign out this form, it confirms that you are who you say you are. Take all the time you need to read it."

Sara snatched the form out of his hand, and read it over quickly. Seeing nothing wrong she set it back down, the man handed her a pencil, and she signed her name. "Alright. Thank you," she said stiffly.

"Make sure to get an initiate's robe, you can find one at the Sacred Thread, right across from the Wizard's Sanctum. They're mandatory for classes," he said.

"Noted," she mumbled as she stuffed the papers beside the rest of her belongings. She turned around stiffly and stormed out of the building. She was so close. She could just go to the apartment complex housing magicians in training and finally sleep on a proper _bed_ for the first time in a week. She couldn't wait, but she still had _so many things to do!_

When she stepped outside she squinted in the light, then found the roads leading to the Magician's Hollow. On the outside it looked identical to most of the other buildings in the Mage Quarter: Purple roof, wooden construction, tinted windows. However it was significantly wider, there were more windows, and she suspected it went back further than other buildings did. Walking inside, she was immediately overtaken by the _casualness_ of it all. Nobody was actually wearing spellcaster robes, opting instead for casual shirts, pants, and skirts. A few seats were set up, in which men and women, humans, gnomes and even high elves, rested. She boggled at their short height and lengthy ears for a moment before walking further in. The paper had said she was on the third floor, so she found a stairwell and climbed up.

Once on the third floor, she turned right and found her room in mere moments. There was a simple little door, which she opened with the key in order to step inside the musty-smelling room.

Sara frowned. She was going to be sharing the room with someone. She knew that for a fact because, beyond the window, two dressers, and a few desks, there was a bunk bed and the bottom bunk was already made and filled with someone's belongings. Sara grumbled but climbed onto the top bunk, shrugging off her pack and laying out onto the pillow that was already there for her.

"Gods," she sighed, relaxing. Finally, a bed. She wanted to just conk out and get some real sleep, and she finally had the chance...

_But I have things to do,_ she thought to herself irately, peeling herself off the bed. She still needed to write and send a letter to her parents - and Leira now that she thought about it - before getting something to eat, and her initiate's robes. Thanks to the schedule she knew where she was going to go to learn, so that was done.

Sara lifted her pack and emptied it onto her bed, letting the extra clothing fall out. After switching out of her pants into a short, comfortable brown skirt, she pocketed the bag of coin, jumped off the bunk, and headed out with an empty pack and an empty stomach. She bounded down the stairs and out into the increasingly-cloudy Mage Quarter.

She breathed in, and headed towards Sacred Threads. The shop was a nice little place, it was cute and the attendant was swift to direct her to warlock initiate robes - not that she intended to be a warlock, she just wanted to learn shadow magic - and let her pick out her size. After that she purchased it, put it in her pack and left. Sara stopped by a tavern called the 'Blue Recluse' for a late lunch. Nothing of any note happened there either; she went in, got a few slices of pie to eat, ate, then left to return to her apartment. She entered the building, trudged up the stairs to the correct door, opened it and -

_Someone's here someone's here SOMEONE'S HERE!_

Before she even took in who it was, Sara's shadow magic flared to life and she held her left hand out at the intruder. She immediately pushed even more power into it, going from black-purple-green to swirling, hungry violet energy. "Who are you?!"

The woman looked at her and backed up, her hands in the air. "Whoa whoa, Sara it's me! From Greenvale, don't you remember?"

Sara narrowed her eyes, looking over the woman. She was pale, even moreso than Sara, and stood about half a head shorter than her with shoulder length, raven-black hair. She was already in red warlock initiate robes, and her face was round with wide blue eyes. Grimacing, Sara lowered her arm and let her magic relax. "Maria, what are you doing here?" she asked her old classmate.

"I live here now! Don't you remember, I'm gonna be a warlock. You too?"

She shrugged. "Except for the whole 'demons' thing."

Maria nodded. "You'll probably want to focus on the affliction spells. Still, I can't believe you're here, with me! What are the odds?" she asked happily, coming in to wrap her arms around Sara.

Sara blinked. "Yes, what are the odds?" She stepped out of the hug and pushed Maria away. "No touching."

"Right, right. Sorry. But still, this is so exciting! I get to share a room with you while we're learning shadow magic! Well, learning _more_ shadow magic in your case."

"Hmm, I'm thrilled. Listen, I still have things to do." She walked over to her bed and slung herself and her pack on top. She pulled out her initiate's robes, then the stationery.

"Oh, right!" Maria said, backing up and taking a seat on the lower bunk. "Sorry."

Sara left the robes on her bed, but hopped off and went to one of the desks with her letters and pencil. She sat down and began writing.

_Dear Mom and Dad,_

_I've arrived safely in Stormwind. I have my schedule for classes, I have all my belongings and my money. I was not robbed, and am in perfect health. Everything is fine. I made it. Unfortunately I'm sharing a room with one of my old classmates, and I'm sore all over from the horse ride, but beyond that everything's great. Hope to hear from you soon._

_Love you,_

_Sara_

She folded up the letter and wrote the address on it before tucking it away. Then she pulled out another letter and began writing.

_Dear Leira,_

_Hey, how're you? I've just arrived in Stormwind,_ finally _gonna start learning magic from people who probably know what they're doing. I'm inside some apartment complex, and according to my schedule I'm going to be learning shadow magic from warlocks and magic fundamentals from mages. How are you? Are you still a squire for Huan Earthsong, or are you actually fighting now? Please let me know, I'm curious. Hope to see you soon._

_From,_

_Sara_

That letter also was folded up, sealed, and had Leira's address in Ironforge written on it. She grabbed both in hand and walked past Maria. "I'm going to the mailbox, where's the closest one?" she demanded.

"There's one right by the Blue Recluse. Or, actually, there's a closer one one building to the right of this place. Who're you sending letters to? Your folks?"

She shot Maria a look that said _none of your business,_ but still said, "Yes. Leira too. You _do_ remember her, right?"

"Uh, yeah. She went to Ironforge to be a squire, right?"

"Right well, if everything went well she should be actually a soldier now in that guild. I need to go." Sara walked out and stormed down the stairwell of the apartment. She nearly collided with two mages as they were climbing, but maneuvered around them to reach the ground floor before stepping out. She found the mailbox easily, and plodded towards it with both letters clutched tightly in her hand. She pushed it inwards and dropped both letters in the 'Outgoing' slot, then gave a light smile. Finally, she was done and could rest. She turned back to the house.

When she arrived back in the room she shared with Maria, she climbed to the top bunk and collapsed on top of her belongings. "Ugh, there. That's everything."

Maria looked up from what Sara assumed was her own schedule. "Don't you need to go look for a job? I know this inscription store that's hiring."

"Tomorrow. Can't go like this. I need rest and I'm a mess." _And I don't know how to mind control people into giving me a job,_ she thought. "I'll take a bath at night, but I'm spent."

"Oh you don't need to take a bath, there's a gnomish shower device down the hall," Maria remarked.

"That's nice." Sara rolled over and found her schedule. She pulled it out and looked it over with bleary eyes. Starting tomorrow she had magic classes starting at ten in the morning, and continuing until ten at night. The Basic Fundamentals of Magic, Magic and the Body, The Types of Magic, the list ran on. The enormity of the task before her began to dawn on Sara: the next few years would be mentally straining beyond anything she knew. But she'd get through it. She had to. After all, she'd been using magic for longer than some of the instructors. If they could get through this, then so could she.

Right after a nap.


	7. Chapter 6: What She Does Best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

_BOOM!_

The sky split open with another bolt of thunder, shaking Sara to her bones and prompting her to give an airy giggle. It wasn't going to be the highlight of her day like dueling would be, but it was _amazing._ Rain poured down, but none touched her because of her iridescent green magical shield. Everywhere around her the grass was watered and the streets slicked with rain under the dark, angry sky. All the same she jogged at a decent pace to the Wizard's Sanctum alongside many other mages and warlocks seeking to get out of the rain, magical shield or no. She ran up the spiral ramp and, once inside, she dismissed her shadowy barrier.

The inside of the Wizard's Sanctum was deliciously labyrinthine, but after having spent six years taking classes and getting lost in its various locations Sara knew it like the back of her hand. She took a moment to chuckle in her head at the people who hadn't been able to shield themselves from the storm's downpour and were now wringing out their robes, before heading off into a passage to the left. Several other students crowded around her, but the raging thunderstorm had left Sara in too good of a mood for their presence to bring her down.

Her skin prickled since the classroom she was in was far underground, and the feeling of being so far under the earth was absolutely constricting. It didn't help that the only way there was by way of a punishing stairwell.

The room was mostly a rectangle, however it sloped downwards so those in the back could see, and it ended with a semicircle upon which the instructors stood. The room itself was filled with benches and desks for students to sit at. Sara, with a few pencils in her robe's pockets, shuffled inwards at the second row from the top. Some people were already there, and more were filing in behind her to prepare for the class. All in all, about fifty people could fit in the chamber.

Once in her chosen seat, Sara took out her writing utensil and tried to still her mind. This was important. All the exams were. There was a tremendous amount of material on the coming written exam, and while she'd put her tremendous memory to work she still wasn't entirely sure she _understood_ all the information.

As more people filed in, Sara's eyes were drawn to the instructor's semicircle. All sorts of vials, flasks, and magical crystals hovered on two desks, steaming and glowing. Her inspection was suddenly interrupted when Archmage Amera Netherhowl, teleported in with a flash of arcane light. "Greetings class!" she said to the sea of people in red or blue robes, throwing back her blueish hair. "Most of you are here yes? Yes yes yes, then let us begin. Now." She blinked over to one of the desks and reached under it, pulling out a hefty stack of papers. "Here are your exams, you will have five hours to fill it out. These ones with the blue lining are for mages, please pass them around. No two tests are identical, so you can't cheat." She reached back under and pulled out more papers. "These ones with purple lining are for..." Her lips pursed for _just_ a moment. "... warlocks. Same rules apply, please pass these around."

The papers came around. At one point the stack of mage questions fell in Sara's hands, and she handed them off to the person next to her. Eventually, she got her exam - a stack of ten papers held together via paperclip - and passed the rest on. She glanced at the paper, noting the title of 'Advanced Spellcasting Exam' with a nod.

The Archmage took out a glowing blue crystal. "This crystal will slowly fade to red. When it's done it will begin glowing brighter, and that will mean your five hours are up. Your time begins..." Her hands burst into flames, and the crystal was rocked by a fiery blast. "Now."

Sara took her pencil to the exam and immediately locked onto the first question. It was an easy one, simply asking her to list the four major components of a spellcaster's power; mana pool, magic power, magic knowledge, and magic resistance. Easy memorization.

The next one was a word problem: Warlock A has a mana pool 500 units deep. Warlock B has a mana pool 200 units deep. Warlock A expends 250 units on a spell. Warlock B expends 150 units on a spell. Who needs more water to replenish their mana? Also an easy one. Warlock B, since deeper mana pools also meant their bodies could more efficiently change water to magic. It was stupid to use integers, since magic wasn't quantized, but it helped get the message across.

After that the questions - predictably - got harder, and Sara had to reach deeper and deeper into her memory to drudge up the answers. The questions went by. At first they were simple recitation problems. She just had to remember the information and regurgitate it, which with Sara's memory was trivial. Eventually, after answering that the inverse function of the rate of mana change a spell induces was directly, proportional to its nether friction, she flipped ahead to see how many questions there were.

A good two hundred fifty. She had two hundred to go.

_Ugh._

Sara flipped back to her questions and kept going through, one step at a time. The further she went, the more the questions pertained to shadow magic and demons, only one of which mattered to her. They also got trickier. Slowly at first, but at around question one hundred fifty, she had to perform great mental acrobatics, thinking about which of the many magical laws she knew of applied to the question, and in what order to use them.

Blinking her eyes, she set down the pencil to look around, rubbing her eyes. Archmage Amera sat in a chair, looking out over the class like a statue. Around her, the air was filled with the scritch-scritch-scritch of pencils. Sara decided to take a quick five minute break and just let her mind go more or less blank for a little while, watching the levitating now-yellow crystal floating menacingly in the air. There was also the fact that she increasingly needed to relieve herself; it was for the best she'd not drank much at all before the exam.

There were only a hundred questions left, so she buckled down and focused her knowledge. Six years studying at the Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences were going to pay off, and they were going to pay off right then and there.

Calculate the mana expenditure of a spell with such and such matrix. Done.

Calculate the energy dissipated by being counterspelled of such a spell in the last so many seconds of its casting. Done.

How many casters are needed at minimum to perform a ritual of such and such schematics? Harder than it looked, but done.

The sheets of paper went by, and before Sara knew it she was answering question two hundred and fifty, a monolith of a problem concerning resonance frequencies and fel density. The crystal was glowing orange-red, so her time was nearly up. She put her wits to it, but she wasn't certain that the correct answer of fifty seven days was correct. Still, it was the best she could do, so she wrote down her answer. Sara used her remaining time to go over her previous answers, checking them for errors. Out of fifty, she found three errors to fix, and then...

_Flash!_

The crystal floating down at the front of the chamber pulsed brilliant crimson, and the Archmage stood from her seat. "Time! Alright class, hand down your tests immediately. As of this moment you have two hours before your magic signature readings, so I suggest you take this time to hydrate."

Sara handed down her sheet and, as best she could while fifty other people were trying to do the same, bolted from the room with her pencil in tow. It was a long, uphill climb to get back to the main chamber of the Wizard's Sanctum that left her legs sore, especially after sitting in one place for five hours. Once there she walked outside - raising her green barrier - into the ongoing summer thunderstorm.

The rain had let up, but the lightning was getting stronger. Brilliant bolts flickered in every direction, as much as ten per minute, and the air shook with thunder. Sara sighed as the dark weather continued to rage around her as she walked down the slippery ramp of the Sanctum. Once down she made her way to the nearest clocktower, focusing intently on it through the rain.

"Two thirty," she muttered. "Still got some time."

She turned around and marched towards the road leading to her apartment with Maria. With half an hour left until her client showed up, she could get there in fifteen minutes and still have as much time to rest after her grueling exam.

Her feet, complete with shoes soaked with water, brought her to the warm apartment. She entered and marched up to the third floor before entering the apartment she had lived in with Maria for the past six years.

The room had taken on a lived-in look over the time they'd spent living in it. Maria's sketches of various creatures and beasts littered the floor like snow. A chair with a green cushion rested next to one of the desks, where Sara had piled notebooks filled with magical equations and strewn writing utensils around haphazardly. The lower bunk bed was ruffled and unmade, however the higher one where Sara slept was... even more messed up. On the other side from the beds was a dresser, open and with clothes half spilling out of it.

Maria was currently sitting on her bed with her back to Sara, a notebook open. She appeared to be drawing a summoning ritual diagram. Imp, if she saw correctly. She glanced back at her when Sara opened the door. "Hey, how was the exam."

"I think I aced it," she said as she closed the door. "By the way, I have a client coming over in about fifteen. Think you can finish that somewhere else?"

Maria shivered when Sara mentioned 'client'. "Yeah, sure. Thanks for the heads up. Seriously, you should get your magic checked out. There's gotta be something wrong with it."

"Well, that's what the signature readings are for." Well, that wasn't their _purpose_ but Sara suspected that some of the nuances of her shadow magic would be cleared up. "Anyway, I gotta get ready." She moved past Maria towards the chair.

"Right, see you later." Maria swung herself out of her bed and, materials still in hand, left their room. That left Sara to stand around, bored, for until her client showed up.

She sighed, and decided to take out her flask and drink some water in the meantime.

At least she was on the fast track to becoming a spellcaster. Just a few more days, and she would officially be a Magister - she couldn't summon demons, so _technically_ she wasn't a warlock. In just six years, too, instead of eight. Not the quickest anyone had ever done it, but still quick. Her job at the inscription shop Prescription Inscriptions was stable, and she made a nice bit of gold on the side by...

_Knock knock knock!_

"Come in," she said.

The door opened and admitted a man maybe... four years younger than her. He wore the bluish silver robes of mage initiates, but it was as unkempt as his orange hair, and as wild as his blue eyes were nervous. His face was gaunt and seemed almost... _tall._ "Hello, are you Sara?"

She stood. "Yes, and I assume you're Marin? Please, come in, close the door and take a seat." She gestured to the green cushioned chair. He moved to it - leaving her to close the door, what an imbecile - and sat facing her. "Now, before we start do you have any questions about the procedure?"

"Well, um, how long is this going to take? And how are you going to do it?"

"As for how long, it varies depending on what causes your procrastination, however a good rule of thumb is twenty minutes. As for how..." She held up her hand and let her shadow magic flare. "My shadow magic is unique in that I taught myself mental manipulation. I'll be changing the pathways in your brain, so that the mechanisms that make you procrastinate cease to exist. I will not be able to read your thoughts, I will not be able to change your memories, nor will I be able to change your personality." Those were lies. She'd been reading minds since she was twelve. As for memory and personality, she could easily change those. Not with any degree of accuracy, memory and personality were too complicated for her to figure out, but she could change them. "Anything else?"

"Um, no. Actually, one thing. What if I'm ever dispelled?"

_Ugh, this question again._ "Nothing will come of it. You can cast fireballs, yes?"

He shrugged and nervously rubbed an arm. "Kind of, but not well."

"Right," Sara said. "Well, imagine you take a piece of parchment, and fireball it into ashes. Then someone comes along, looks at the ashes, and magically dispels them. Will they 'dispel' the fireball so they're paper again? No, because the fireball has already done its effects and the magic is long gone. Same here. My magic will change the way your mind works, and the 'burn marks' will remain without the aid of magic." She blinked owlishly. "That makes it sound much more harmful than it actually is, but you understand," she said with a light humorous grin. "Anyway, are you ready to begin?"

He took a deep breath, then let it out. "Yes."

Sara walked over until she was behind him, and placed one hand next to each of his ears. "Alright, close your eyes." He did so, and she lit up her hands with shadow magic. She pushed her power into his mind - he shivered - and she could suddenly see the crisscrossing purple lines that made up the young man's mind.

There were so many more lines than in an animal's mind, and they flickered and flashed just as intensely. There were so many the brain was practically one giant orb of violet energy, but Sara focused. The orbs of magic in her hands shifted to thick purple light, and she isolated everything in Marin's brain except for the frontal part, near his forehead. There were a lot of lines, but she had a way of finding what she needed.

"Alright, now I want you to think about the following scenario. Your instructor has just finished a lesson, and has instructed you all to go practice casting fireballs on training dummies. You are to attain a temperature of five hundred degrees three times in a row. Proof of this is required in two weeks from today." From what she heard, five hundred degrees was the most trivial of tasks when it came to fire magic.

She finished describing the situation, and watched as a handful of interconnecting lines suddenly flared at the expense of all the others. "Next scenario. You are studying for an exam about the rate of arcane current flows in the Twisting Nether and how they relate to the strength of ley lines. You need to get at least a ninety percent on this test, or you will have to spend an extra year before you are a Magister. But the test is looming, and there's just too much material to cover, so you're certain you will fail no matter how hard you try."

This time a few new lines lit up. Some of the previous ones flared again, though.

"I'm sorry," Marin interrupted. "But what is the point of this?"

_Shut up shut up._ "Procrastination does more or less the same thing to everyone," she explained. "But it has a variety of different causes. I need to see what causes _your_ procrastination. Now. You just picked up an incredible book from the library. It's high fantasy, about a world devoid of magic and with but one intelligent race. It's held your attention rapturously, but you also have to go out to buy supplies for your room. You know that you need those supplies, but on the other hand you could simply stay in your bed, reading the book." Other lines lit up, but not as strongly.

She continued to inspect his mind, taking note of a few dozen lines in particular, as she rattled off scenarios for another fifteen minutes. Before too long, she had what she needed. "Alright, I have everything I need." The purple energy in her hands glowed a little brighter, and she began rearranging the problematic lines into more proper arrangements. Marin's procrastination was born of the fear of failure, of despair in the face of difficult tasks, and some perfectionism. His risk/reward was intact, so it wasn't a case of him prioritizing immediate reward over future reward. Simple. Sara snipped some of the lines, grew some new ones, changed others, and within three minutes Marin's procrastination was cured.

Ending her flow of magic, Sara stepped back. "Alright, that's it. Your problem should be gone."

Marin stood up and blinked his eyes. Some shadows still stubbornly clung to his head and hair. "I... huh. I don't feel any different."

"You shouldn't," Sara explained. "Your everyday experiences aren't impacted by putting things off, usually you live in the - what are you going to do?!" she asked suddenly, to take him off guard and get an honest answer.

"I'm going to go practice my frostbolts on a dummy," he said without thinking. Then Marin blinked, and his face was split by a wide smile. "Oh wow, _wow,_ it really works doesn't it?"

"You can still put things off if you _really_ try to," Sara explained. "But you won't feel as compelled to do so anymore."

"Thank you, thank you _so_ much. Here." He reached into his robes and, after some fishing around, pulled out twelve gold. "Keep the extra two," he said as he gave the money to her. He ruffled his hair, cleaning out the shadow magic in it. "You really earned it. Thank you, um, enjoy your day Sara."

"You too," she said with false honesty as he left. "Enjoy. Your. Day," she said to the closed door as she moved the gold around in her right hand.

That was that done with. Her next client was tomorrow, which meant the only thing _truly_ important left for the day was her magical signature reading. After that she could go to the dueling club for a few hours and relax. Stretching, Sara walked back out of the building in short order

The storm was clearing up, to her disappointment. The rain was gone, the lightning was no more, and while it was still cloudy more and more sunlight broke through the gray cover. She sighed. Oh well. The good things in life were fleeting.

Instead of heading to the Wizard's Sanctum for her magical reading, Sara headed to the Shadow Magic division, formerly a pub known as the Slaughtered Lamb. She walked inside the brownish building the same way she had hundreds of times before, and she took the staircase down amidst several other warlocks and nervous mages. The staircase spiraled down, and down, and _down._ The air grew damp and musky, the walls turned from wood to black brick. Within moments she arrived in a large cellar, with a central bonfire whose smoke billowed upwards into a small vent. It cast flickering lights on the bookshelves that were pushed into alcoves, and at the edges of the circular room were warlocks at desks, busy writing.

Across from Sara was a ramp that ran even further underground. She went over to it and descended into the catacombs, taking turn after turn through the labyrinth. The halls down here were lined with various magical protections, and as she came closer and closer to her destination they only get stronger. She passed a passage to her left that she knew led to one of the demon summoning areas, one of the more heavily warded areas. But Sara wasn't going to go summon demons.

With what she guessed was ten minutes to spare, she found the place where mages and warlocks alike were gathering to have their magical signatures taken. Since everyone's signature was slightly different, and therefore their magical talents slightly different, it would go a long way to figuring out how the different schools of magic arose.

Sara also suspected that it would be used to track down magical criminals should they ever decide to turn down that road, which was unfortunate for her. She hadn't figured out total, permanent mind control _yet_ but when she did...

A few dozen instructors stood around the perimeter of the circular room, watching carefully for any unexpected accidents. Before Sara stretched a long line of people, which ended next to a contraption just out of sight. She sighed, but resigned herself to a fate of waiting and watching people leaving with their results in hand.

Eventually, the line moved forward and Sara could see the device that would take her signature. It was an ornate staff, about as long as she was tall, on a table. The shaft was green as grass, and it ended with scintillating, clear crystals formed like a pine cone. A mage in his fifties stood on the pine cone side, a pad of paper in onehand and a transparent crystal in the other.

A woman her age wrapped her arms around the staff and exchanged some words she couldn't hear with the man. Then arcane magic flowed along the staff, filling up the crystals - including the one the man held - with silvery blue energy. After she stopped, the man handed her a piece of paper. She looked at it and left, and meanwhile the man used a series of arcane incantations to clean out the crystals before calling the next person's name.

Finally, it was her turn. "Sara Smithers," the man bellowed, despite there being no formal order of people being called. She stepped forward and clasped her hands along the staff. "Alright, remember. Channel all the magic you can up the vertical portion of the staff for precisely ten seconds. Note this does not mean channel magic for ten seconds. If it takes you five seconds to reach full power, then you will channel for a total of fifteen seconds. We are ready to begin whenever you are."

Sara nodded, and reached deep into herself. Her hands were engulfed in cloying violet darkness immediately. She gritted her teeth and dug in her feet as she focused harder. The magic flowed along the staff, running up its length like a river as the crystals filled with magic. It looked like an inky purple liquid, nearly black, was pouring into them. As she increased her magic's output the brilliant purple color of her magic shifted, until it was the same vivid emerald as the mist that flowed off corpses when she revived them.

Her arms shook, and she could feel her magic pulsing through her, a wild and hungry river, scalding and rough as it passed over her limbs. The act of channeling it along a staff kept her from harming herself, but even so the act of using so much magic felt like a cheese grater was grinding her bones. The mage's own crystal was filled with inky darkness, with flashes of green lightning in its depths. Sara imagined he looked surprised, but her entire focus was on sustaining the magic flow and on counting the seconds.

_Ten,_ she thought at last. Her magic cut off and she stumbled back from the staff, rubbing her arms and legs as they complained. "Is that good?" she asked.

The man nodded, scribbling on his pad with an inked quill. "Hmm, interesting," he muttered. "Um, yes, it is. Very satisfactory." He tore out the paper and handed it to her. "Here you go miss, that's everything."

She took it and nodded, backing up. As Sara turned around to leave, she heard the mage trying to clean out her magic from the entrapment crystals. "Hmm," he grunted. "Doesn't want to dissipate. Maybe more power."

Rolling her eyes, she made her way back out of the heavily warded catacombs. It only took her a few minutes to climb up and out, and the moment she did her stomach growled at her.

She sighed, and went to go find a quick restaurant to eat at. As she walked she held up the paper and began to decipher the man's horrible handwriting. "Min... Man... Mana pool," she read aloud. She squinted at the description of her mana pool, then threw her head back and laughed once she found it. "HA! Oh wow, that's something! So what, I have basically infinite mana?" Okay, not infinite, but still! It wasn't a record but it was _really_ up there. She read a lower line, the one describing how much of her mana she could put into each spell. _Hmm,_ she thought. _Nice._ It explained much of her success in duels.

Then Sara read the last line, her magical resistance, and frowned. The higher someone's magical resistance, the more magic they could channel without harming themselves. Almost everyone had more power than resistance, which was part of the reason why staves were used. Sara's magical resistance though was... _quite_ below her power. She'd probably need to go buy a staff of her own if she ever planned to do serious spell casting.

Which was annoying, because custom staves weren't cheap.

After memorizing her paper and ripping it apart with her magic, Sara went out and got a late lunch at a pastry shop, consisting of warm biscuits and a few sugar cookies. After she was done with that she found a privy, then walked to the northern part of the Mage Quarter. The building in question had a sign hanging out front, with the image of two staves crossed in combat emblazoned on both sides. Right above it was a clock, showing that it was closing in on six in the afternoon.

She stepped inside the building and shivered as a burst of cool air washed over her. She shook her head and headed in deeper. Before too long she came across a woman sitting behind a small podium with a door behind her. She looked at Sara as she approached. "Hello, welcome to - oh, hello Sara. Welcome back."

Sara kept walking to the door, and grunted. "Hey." She pushed her way in and entered the Academy's official magical dueling arena.

'Arena' was a generous term. It was a chamber about twice the size of the one she'd had her exam in, but it wasn't slanted so much as bowl-shaped and had seats all along the outside. Currently the building was far from full capacity, with only about two dozen people milling about. In the middle was a circular ring about twenty yards across with Alliance flags on the perimeter and a marble floor. Currently nobody was inside dueling, instead walking about outside. Several desktops on the outskirts offered refreshments for a surprisingly low price. On one of the walls was the list of rules for the magic duels.

On the far side was the current bracket. Sara was - to her misery - in the loser's bracket after getting knocked down by a counterspell in her first match. She approached the chart and looked for her name, inside a purple box. She was going up against... the blue box of the mage Tharama Thelon. Probably a high elf, she thought, before grunting and found a seat.

A clock mounted on the walls ticked to six in the afternoon and, with a flash of arcane light, a mage in his forties teleported in with a flash of light. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and bellowed, "Greetings, everyone! I welcome you to the second day of the fiftieth Stormwind Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences Magical Dueling Group!" Some cheering resounded. Sara just crossed her arms and waited impatiently.

"I'm sure you are all excited for today's second round of events, but first I need to make an announcement. Due to some unforeseen medical consequences, the loser's bracket rounds will be going first today and the winner's bracket second." There were groans. "I know, I know, I'm sorry. Anyway, that concludes today's brief announcements. First match will be..." He looked down at a paper in his hands. "Between Tartha Ebonstrand and Fizzy Cogstrider! Please enter the ring."

Sara watched with mild interest as a high elf with a transparent imp by her side, and a little gnome with pink pigtails, entered opposite areas of the ring. The coordinator whose name she couldn't be bothered to learn made a ten second long arcane gesture and previously invisible runes lit up in the dueling arena. A shimmering, transparent arcane dome appeared over the two.

"Ready," he bellowed in his deep, echoing voice. "And you may begin!"

Sara watched in amusement as the two weaker casters squared off. They blasted against each other with powerful fire spells. Tartha's smoked densely, the acrid smog seeping out of the dome and crawling across the ground while Fizzy's burned with blinding intensity. Sara and the other spectators leaned forward, watching as the warlock and the mage blasted each other with various spells.

It was an intriguing exchange of snaking fire, pyroblasts, curses, and polymorphs. Eventually though, the gnome and her mana shield came out on top of the scorched and woozy high elf.

"Halt!" the man said, and they did. The runes faded. "The winner of the duel is Fizzy Cogstrider, who will advance to the next level of the loser's bracket! Duelists, you may leave the arena." The gnome walked over to the elf and offered a hand to help her stand up. It was awkward watching someone helped up by a woman literally half their size, but help her up she did.

"Our next contestants!" _Oh,_ she thought. _I'm up, aren't I?_ She sat up in her seat. "Tharama Thelon and last year's runner-up, Sara Smithers!" She cracked her neck and glided down towards the arena. She went around to one side and entered. Her opponent did the same from the other end.

Sara sized him up. Tharama Thelon was a mage as evidenced by his robes. He had a messy mop of red hair, and a short stubble of a beard. He was even thinner than her and a few shades paler, not surprising for a high elf. A simple wooden staff was clenched tightly in his right hand, which shook feverishly. His owlish face looked at her warily, and his dark eyes flickered nervously. It was good that he feared her. He'd fear her even more in a few moments.

The arcane runes around her hissed and flickered to life, forming a protective dome around herself and Thelon. She grinned at him wickedly, and he gulped silently. "Ready, and you may begin!"

Tharama's hands flashed with arcane power and a shimmering mana shield sprung up around him. At the same time Sara curled over, then suddenly stood ramrod straight with purple magic glowing around her hands. Her own magic swirled within and a moment later burst forth in the form of a colossal, blinding shadow nova. The shield around the arena flickered and hissed in protest, and he was sent flying backwards with his barrier shattered.

_Nothing else was expected,_ she thought. Sara kept her magic aglow and began calculating. Six years of magical training proved themselves as she once again formed a translucent green shadowy barrier around herself. Thelon recovered and sent a small sliver of ice at her, but it shattered uselessly against her barrier. Chuckling in her mind, she held up her hands and began to cast a new spell.

She pictured the matrix in her mind, and poured her abundant power into it. The spell took form, and from her glowing violet hands shot a gaunt, black skull with maddened eyes at Tharama, trailing heavy smog where it traveled. He sidestepped hastily and it splashed on the barrier like liquid.

The elf shot her with another spell, this time in the form of an icicle twice her size. It flew at her and broke into shards against her defenses, bringing a smile to her face. In that time she prepared two more shadow bolts and flung them at him. He sidestepped the first, and summoned a mana shield for the second one - which immediately collapsed upon impact.

She grinned. What was he going to do? There was nothing he could do to hurt her. All she had to do was keep firing shadow bolts at him, and eventually one would connect. All she _needed_ was for one to connect.

Another ice lance. A frostbolt. A fireball. A salvo of arcane missiles. A blast of flame. A whirlwind of cold. At one point he warded himself with frosty armor, for all the good it would do.

Shadow bolt. Shadow bolt. Shadow bolt. Shadow bolt. As time went on Sara began to cast them faster and faster, until he couldn't stop to cast for a moment. He finally gave up and tried running at her, no doubt to try and freeze her in place...

... so she released another shadow nova right at him.

Tharama went flying back, and while he was in midair Sara nailed him with a single shadowy skull. He landed in a groaning heap with dark mist swirling about him, and the wards flickered out.

"That's quite enough!" the man shouted. "The winner of the duel is Sara Smithers, who will advance to the next level of the loser's bracket! Duelists, you may leave the arena." She smirked, but convention said she had to help him so she walked over to Thelon. Dismissing her shadowy barrier, she swiped her hand through the air several times to blow away the clinging darkness and helped the swaying mage to his feet.

"Wow," he breathed, not meeting her eyes. "G-Good fight."

Sara didn't say anything, instead grunting and turning away to return to her seat.

"Our next contestants!" the mage shouted. "Elon Tussel and..." Sara tuned out, glancing over to where Tharama sat. He'd been disappointing. All he'd have to do was counterspell her, then dispel her shield and polymorph her. But what did she expect? He _was_ in the loser's bracket. Had been, at any rate.

She leaned back and watched as two warlocks fought each other, drumming her fingers on her legs. One was using corrosive shadow spells that Sara knew she really needed to practice more often, while the other hid behind a colossal, seething voidwalker while wielding fel and flame. The duel went long and hard, with both warlocks draining life either from their opponent or from the voidwalker.

There were two more duels after that in the loser's bracket which Sara watched with varying interest. By the time the winner's bracket came around, though, she narrowed her eyes at the third duelist. Elizabeth Taryn. She was last year's champion, the one who'd dispelled her shield and ripped her magic away, turned her into a damnable _farm animal_ to win. She bit her lip and fought down the urge to paralyze her from afar since the wards in the room would single her out if she tried.

Later. Sara could grind her into the dirt later, after she worked her way back up from the loser's bracket. It was time to study, both Elizabeth's style and... and learning how to actually fight herself couldn't hurt.

Night fell, and the last of the duels for the day ended. Sara still had a few final classes the next day before she would officially be a Magister - including a practical exam - so she bought some water from the stands and headed home for an early nap.

She left the dueling arena and walked through the darkened Mage Quarter, marveling at the dark twinkling stars and the light of the sister moons. She found her apartment and trudged up the stairs to her room. Maria was at a desk, studying by candle light, and the warlock acolyte looked her way as she entered.

"Hey, you're back early."

"I guess," she grunted. Sara climbed the bunk bed and pulled her covers up. "Night," she said.

"Well, night I guess."


	8. Chapter 7: Face Facts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

_Magister Sara is all well and good,_ she thought as she paced in her private room, given to her after her graduation as a Magister - two years ahead of schedule to boot. _But Archmage Sara would sound better._ As an Archmage there would be practically nothing restricted to her, she could view records, find people she could make use of. She could go see her magical signature, see why her shadow magic behaved so differently from everyone else's.

The authority, the pay, the knowledge, the _power_ were all so enticing. Sara stopped her pacing and chuckled. The power. The _options_ she'd have with the power, the countless paths that'd be open to her. She wanted it. _Oh_ she wanted it. So much it hurt.

The problem was that one didn't simply _become_ an Archmage. To become a Magister Sara had needed to learn a great amount of magic, but if she wanted to be an Archmage she'd need to contribute her own knowledge, learn something nobody else knew and then share it. And that was just the start, because following that was another ten years of research and experimentation.

What was she going to do? What could she find? There was so much already known within the magical fields that she'd be hard pressed to find anything at all that was undiscovered.

She growled. She sat down at her desk and tapped on the hard wood. She took out some sheets of paper and scribbled until she wore the pencil down into a nub.

Maybe she needed to go for a walk. Get some fresh air. She'd just gotten back from her job but she wanted some air.

Sara went to her wardrobe and switched her robes for a shirt and pants, then pocketed her key and some gold and silver before walking out of her room and locking the door behind herself. Sara lived in a sort of suite, with three others and a commons room, each with their own personal rooms. It was a major step up from having to share her space with Maria, but not as preferable as having an entire house all to herself; another reason to go for Archmage.

Walking outside the front door, she was smacked in the face by what was supposed to be autumn. Stormwind, being practically right on the equator, knew nothing but perpetual summer. Greenvale hadn't been much cooler, but the added effect of being next to the ocean meant Stormwind's weather was constantly hot, humid, and stormy. Right away Sara felt herself wilting under the sticky heat, but she wiped her eyes and continued walking around.

There were few people around, and even fewer paying attention to her. She made a loop around the Wizard's Sanctum, then swung by the Blue Recluse, then headed to the Canals. Once there, she continued walking until she was in the Park.

The Park was in full bloom, covered in flowers of all scents and colors. A few others were on a walk, and in the Park a higher amount of them were night elves. There had been a few night elves living in Greenvale but Sara hadn't seen them often, and even after over half a decade living in Stormwind she was still mesmerized by how _different_ they were with their long ears, markings, and skin. And the glowing eyes. Especially the glowing eyes.

Besides that, the Park was close enough to the sea for the scent of salt water to drift along the air. Sara breathed deeply through her nose, imagining the ocean and its churning depths, its wild storms, the devouring Maelstrom, and smiled.

In addition to the flowers and grass, of course, were the animals. Squirrels and birds mostly, chirping and chittering that, when she passed them, went as silent as the grave. Sara allowed her mind to wander as she walked slow circles around the Park, sometimes moving out of someone's path.

Archmage. How would she do it? There had to be _something_ she could figure out, something that hadn't yet been discovered. But the only things Sara could think of were so far beyond her ability it was _staggering._ Charting out the density of the Twisting Nether around Outland. Investigating the leylines under Karazhan and their relation with the tower's ghosts. All of it was simply too complicated for her. She'd never get to be an Archmage at that rate. Never have the prestige, the ability to find out -

\- _that's it!_

Sara came to a stop, and whipped her body around to make her way back to the Mage Quarter.

That was the answer. Sara's shadow magic was... _different._ She'd have to be an idiot not to have noticed and, given that her magic needed Archmage authority to access instead of Magister, the higher ups knew as well. If she could figure out the difference, or at least have it point her in the right direction...

But how? She didn't have the authority to view her own magical signature. Only Archmages did. She needed to think, and she needed to plan.

As Sara arrived back at her home, she went over to the mailbox and fished through the letters inside. She put back the ones that weren't hers, but then found one addressed to 'Sara Smithers' and took it in hand. With that done she went inside, found her suite, and locked herself away in her room. She looked to her left at her pet squirrel in his cage, muted and running around in eternal panic, and allowed herself a chuckle at its misfortune. She went over to her desk and drew out a few pieces of paper, as well as a pencil. Before she began furiously scribbling and planning though, she opened her letter and read it.

_Dear Sara,_

_Hey there, hope you're doing well! Grats on winning the dueling tournament this year, you really deserved it. Wish I could've been there to see it. I'm doing fine, things are pretty calm right now in the Chimes. Oh, except for one thing. I'm going out on a mission after I send this letter, gonna track down some badies and see what they're up to, ya know? Should take about a month or two, so I won't be able to reply to your letters. Please don't send a bunch of letters each week, okay? Just send a big one near the end. Sorry in advance for not being able to spend Hallow's End with you._

_See ya in a month or two._

_Sincerely,_

_Leira Vindalis_

Sara quirked her mouth. "Well, stay safe Leira," she whispered before tucking the letter off to the side and turning her attention back to her prior task.

Mental magic. That was, in laymen's terms, what was different about her magic. She didn't know the why or the how of it, but Sara's dark magic took to mental magic like a fish to water. She needed mental magic, but she needed it to be ongoing. She needed an... an enchantment.

She opened one of the drawers and fished out a gemstone. She placed the blue Sparkling Stormjewel on the desk in front of her and inspected it, turning it over and over as she pondered what the enchantment would look like. Once Sara had a good idea, she began sketching it on the paper. First by drawing a brain, then highlighting roughly where the lines she needed to influence would be. The spell needed to be _perfect._ She couldn't adjust it on the fly, once the enchantment was in the gem it was in the gem.

The magic needed to reach out to anyone within sight. It needed to affect them if they were looking at her. Making the spell identify when they were watching her specifically was too complicated, so she scribbled down an angle comparison mechanism. After that it was some trickery focusing on attention and memory. She finished writing down the spell, then looked it over several times to be sure she'd gotten it right.

"Alright, no time like the present," she muttered as she took the gem in her hand. Sara called up her shadow magic, enough to form smoky multicolored orbs but not enough to become a thick, pervasive purple. She began filling the blue crystal with intricate lines and pathways of magical instructions, forcing the gem to subtly realign its internal structure to accommodate the spell and tinting it until it was indigo. It took well to it; she'd chosen the Sparkling Stormjewel precisely for its calming effect on the soul, and the ease with which it soaked up her enchantment confirmed she'd made the right choice.

After an hour of analyzing the spell, Sara stepped back and held the gem to her face. The enchantment was inside, all that was left to do was feed it magic so it would activate. It was the difference between making a candle, and lighting it. She held her magic to it... then quickly stopped.

"Oh, oops. Stupid," she said to herself. Her magic coursed through the gem as she hastily applied an exception clause; she didn't want the distraction magic to affect herself, after all. "Alright, _now_ it's ready." She closed her fist around the gem and fed a portion of her colossal mana pool into it. Once she opened her hand and stopped the flow of power, the jewel glowed brightly, like a miniature sun as it radiated magic outwards from itself. "Perfect."

Time for a test run and, if it worked, she could move right on to the second stage of her plan.

With the enchanted crystal in one hand, Sara left her home for the third time that day. Once out in the streets, the effects of the crystal began to radiate outward. The roaming mages and warlocks were too far for her to make out if they'd been affected, so she glanced around for someone to test more directly.

She found her target in the form of a young woman, a mage in training if her simple blue robes were anything to go by, walking hurriedly down the street like she had somewhere important to be, and she had to be there five minutes ago. Sara walked towards her path in order to cut her off. Once she was in the mage's path, she waited for the brunette to reach her and then began backpedaling.

"Hello," she told her. "My name's Sara, I'm guessing you're new here?" The other woman made no indication she'd heard Sara at all and continued on forward. Sara stepped to the side and huffed. "Hmm. Rude. Fine." Complete success.

She pocketed the gem and, before letting go, forcibly pulled the magic out of it to make it inert; no need for it to be making everyone ignore her quite yet. Sara decided to roam around and find the address she would go to at night.

_Or... why wait at all?_ she asked herself. She stuck her hand back into her pocket and activated the enchantment a second time. _Why not just find an Archmage right now? If they are unable to notice me at all..._

Sara grinned to herself and set out to find an Archmage. She knew they tended to make their livings in the immediate proximity of the Wizard's Sanctum, and she'd be able to distinguish them by way of the especially elaborate robes. All she needed to do was grab a bench and wait. So she did, making her way to the area around the Wizard's Sanctum. She found a bench and began people-watching.

A trio of women sat in a circle, discussing their classwork on arcane flows. A crier for the Blue Recluse made his rounds, advertising the tavern. Mages in training went up the spiral ramp to the Wizard's Sanctum and warlocks in training descended into the depths of the repurposed Slaughtered Lamb. Anybody that looked at her and was close enough promptly became unable to focus on her and, so far as they were concerned, she didn't exist.

Time went on. Billowing white clouds towered all around her, reaching for the heavens. The sun slowly descended and cast lengthy shadows along the ground. Then, Sara's eyes snapped to an approaching figure. He was maybe twice her age, with the faintest hints of a bald spot in his brown hair. She couldn't see his eye color from her distance, but he had a little stubble of a beard and was clothed in elaborate teal, purple and golden robes as he walked down the street, reading a tome in one hand. He was her target. Now she just had to follow him home.

She rose from her bench and walked over to him, keeping pace with the mage as he presumably went home. At one point he glanced at her, only for his blue eyes to go dull until he turned his attention back to where he was walking. They turned a few corners, went down a few streets, and eventually the man stopped at a relatively small building. It was about half the size of any of the others, with no more than a second floor and two windows.

Sara had to be careful. She didn't know what sort of magical wards he had around his house if any at all, so she'd have to move quickly to subdue him once they were inside. The older man opened the door and she slipped in behind him, dodging his arm as he closed the door.

There were inside the living room, with couches and bookshelves, and a stand that supported a magelight. The Archmage's hands lit up with arcane light, but before he could cast anything Sara struck.

Her shadow magic lit up purple and engulfed his head. She focused on the lower center of the brain, where the interconnecting lines weren't as thick as in other areas. She identified the part of it that controlled sleep - being careful to avoid the part that controlled breathing - and forced the inactive lines to flare up.

The Archmage's spell winked out and he dropped like a rock.

Sara lurched forward and caught him under the armpits, and lowered him gently to the floor. Before she did anything else, she deactivated the enchantment on her Sparkling Stormjewel. Once that was done she directed her shadow magic at him again, concentrating right around the loops and lines that regulated sleep. After a few moments of looking closely, she identified the lines that would allow the Archmage to wake up. She snipped those lines free.

After that was done, she took a moment to let out the breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding. No magic wards had activated. Either he wasn't so paranoid, or she'd caught him just before he was going to refresh them. Either way, good news for her.

Stepping back and rolling her shoulders, Sara got ready for the hard part. She focused back on the front part of his brain, and searched for the part that was involved in making friends. In order to see it more clearly, she also reached into his hearing center and whispered soft words such as _'I want to be your friend'_ or, in his own voice, said _'That person looks like she'd be a good friend'_ and watched the lines ripple and flare as she did. Sara spoke to him a few more times, then decided she had a good idea of where his friend making lines were.

So she began changing them. She made new ones, cut old ones, created and killed connections until the Archmage napping at her feet would instantly consider anyone he saw to be a good friend. Half an hour after knocking him out, Sara stepped back and ended her magic, wiping her brow. She reconnected the mental lines that would allow him to wake up, then activated them with her shadow magic.

The mage jerked awake with a snort, looking up at her. "Oh, what happened?" He pushed himself on his hands, and Sara helped him up with a light grin. "So sorry, I don't know _what_ came over me. Hey, I'm sorry I didn't catch your name."

"Oh, that's okay. My name's Sara, Magister Sara Smithers. Are you alright?"

The Archmage's eyes looked left, then right, then widened. He pointed at her. "Oh! You're _that_ Sara! Heard a lot about you. I'm fine, don't worry about me. Here, let me get you something to drink."

She dipped her head respectfully. "That'd be great, thanks."

Following him into the kitchen like a shadow, Sara watched him open a few cupboards and take out glass cups and a large jug of liquid. "Sorry, but I only have water right now. I was planning to go shopping tomorrow, so you've caught me at a disadvantage, Sara." He poured a cup and Sara took it, sipping gently. "So anyway, I haven't introduced myself have I?"

She shook her head and held up a hand. "Oh no, that's fine. Not your fault."

"Right, well my name is Andrias Dorlan. Pleased to meet you, Sara." They shook hands. "So, what brings you over here to my humble abode?" She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand to silence her. "Ah, let's move to the living room."

"Sure, sure," she said as cheerfully as she could manage. They took a seat on the brown leather couch facing a painting of Ironforge, Sara to Archmage Dorlan's left.

"Now, what was it you came here for?"

"Well, I want to be an Archmage." His eyes twinkled and he gave a quiet _mmhmm,_ motioning for her to continue. "So I figured I could use my own magic as a starting point. There's definitely _something_ different about my magic compared to other types of shadow magic. The plan is I figure out what causes the difference by comparing my magical signature to a baseline, and see where that leads me. Problem is I don't know where my magical signature is."

Archmage Dorlan nodded gravely. "Well, that certainly sounds interesting. I looked at your magical signature, it was _quite_ the thing. I'm sorry though, but your magical signature is classified. However..." He tapped his finger against his chin. "If you were to _somehow_ receive a copy of your magic signature, and be _inspired_ by it to pursue a certain magical branch and research it thoroughly enough to reach Archmage status, but drop no indication of what you were inspired by?" He grinned at Sara and his eyes twinkled mischievously. "Well, I don't know who'd object to that."

"Really?" she asked, lighting up. "You'd do that? Oh, you don't have to." She stuck a hand in her pocket and quietly, carefully, began undoing the changes she'd done to him. It'd be no good if he mysteriously started being close friends with literally everyone he saw.

He waved off her false concern. "Oh no no, it's fine. Say, why don't you head on home, yeah? I'll get the magical signature and put it in your mail, should be done around noon."

Sara nodded, continuing to undo the changes she'd made. To her fortune, he wasn't moving around too much so it was easy. "I get off work at three, so sounds good. You sure this is okay?"

The Archmage winked at her. "Hey, if nobody knows." He clapped her on the back. "Well, if there's nothing else?"

"I gotta get going," she said, taking the hint and finishing up her reversal of the mind magic. "I have an early shift tomorrow, so I gotta get some sleep early," she explained.

As she stood, so did Andrias Dorlan. "Well, see you around, Sara! Don't be a stranger, feel free to pop in time to time." He stepped forward and hugged her, patting her on the back. She tensed, but allowed it to keep up appearances. "See you around, I'll see about getting you a copy of your signature."

"Thanks, have a good night." She walked out of his home and, once the door closed behind herself, she gave a light fist pump in victory. "Hook, line and sinker," she whispered to herself before heading home to sleep.

* * *

The next day, Sara went through her morning routine; randomly select a breakfast, scarf it down quickly, clean up her bedhead, then get dressed and go to work before the sun was up. Work was as agonizingly uneventful as always, and given what her 'friend' had promised the day before, she was looking forward to getting out of the inscription shop. She had her lunch break, after which followed three more hours of work, and then she was done. Sara collected her pay and swung by a postboard near the outside of the Mage Quarter, where she kept her advertisements for procrastination cures. There was nothing new in that regards, so she left it and returned to her home.

She looked into the mailbox and fished around the letters for a bit before pulling one out. Sure enough, there it was. Sara's magic signature, enclosed in a little envelope addressed to her. Giving a low chuckle, she went inside and into her room before opening it.

There was a letter, where Archmage Dorlan prattled on about how he hoped she got some good research from it and blah blah blah. She tossed it aside and removed the folded up parchment containing her magical signature. She opened it, smoothed it out, and then placed it on her desk for her to look at closely.

A person's magical signature was a complicated description of how well their body produced magic at various resonance frequencies. The horizontal axis described the magic's frequency, the vertical axis described the quantity of magic produced. Technically there should have been four axes, with the third jutting up from the paper, but in place of that there was simply a color key with various colors describing different heights. Numbers written next to the colors would indicate their place along the fourth axis.

The paper was pale blue graph paper, with her name written at the top and her magical signature was in the form of hundreds of dots along the graph of various colors. In the corner there was a legend and along the axes were labels and values. Sara looked at the signature, and frowned. "That can't be right," she muttered.

Sara knew what magical signatures were supposed to look like, with some variation on the account of individuals. Hers did not look anything like that. The two dimensional axes were jagged, forming sharp spikes that went up a short distance, back down, then up again to a higher distance, until one of the spikes reached a certain height. At that point it fell back down to a small height and repeated. The colors were all in the upper range for the third axis, and the fourth axis's numbers were all over the place with no discernible pattern.

"What in the world?" she muttered, taking out a piece of paper and a pencil. She began making two more graphs, one comparing the horizontal axis with the third instead of the second, and another with the fourth instead of the second so she could better visualize them. Those also didn't look anything like what they should've. There was only one thing to do: Sara needed to find who had a magical signature like what she did.

She made a copy of the original magical signature, then placed that and the other two in a pack. She slung it over her shoulders, along with a waterskin, and headed out to the Wizard's Sanctum. She blended into the crowd and headed up the spiral, and once inside she went through the claustrophobic tunnels, twisting and turning into the earth, until she arrived in the Grand Library.

The Grand Library consisted of shelves upon shelves of various magical tomes. Tables scattered here and there were occupied by mages and warlocks with their heads buried in books. A smaller shelf near the front provided an index for people to find specific books, but Sara had already memorized the important bits and knew where she was headed.

She passed several shelves pertaining to arcane spells, fire spells, magic theory, demon classifications, until she came upon a series of tomes consisting of little more than lists upon lists of magical signatures.

Sara pulled down the first in a list of humans, just to have a control to reference against. She got one for each of the races of the Alliance and Horde, the various Dragonflights, races belonging to neutral factions, and then a list of 'other' magical signatures. Sara found a desk far in the corners where there was nobody else to distract her, sat down, and began perusing the books.

Human magical signatures tended to be smoother, like a mountain slowly rising, then falling after the middle of the graph. It was more or less the same for the other members of the Alliance and Horde, which baffled Sara. Why was her magic so... _incredibly_ far out? Maybe the reading process had screwed up?

_But it's the only thing that explains my magic,_ she thought to herself.

Sara drummed her fingers together, staring at 'Pandaren Magical Signatures' intensely. The Pandaren signatures were slightly pushed to the left of the human signatures, and didn't go as high, among other slight differences that wouldn't add up to much in actual spell casting.

She pondered. There was something with her magic. Sara didn't think her signature was _completely_ unique, the odds of that were laughable. But if she could find something close to her magic, then she could presumably do her Archmage Thesis on that topic. She'd certainly have a head start, at least. But what _was_ her magic?

Neutral factions turned up nothing. Dryads and high elves had nothing in common with her, the former being almost the complete opposite of her magic. Dragonflights also turned up nothing. The closest she got was the three magical signatures from captured Twilight dragons, which were similar to her signature on two of the axes, but on the other two they instead resembled other Flights. Nothing useful there.

Finally, Sara opened up the 'Miscellaneous Creature Magical Signature' book, flipping first to the table of contents. Troggs, kobolds, one single entry of a faceless, a lot of elementals, gnolls, and other such creatures. She stared at the table for a while, then rolled her eyes. Right, her magic would line up with them. Her reading had probably just gotten messed up, she'd pay the fee to get a second one. Still, since she was already there and wasn't doing anything...

Troggs were not even close. The elementals had a _passing_ resemblance in terms of the third axis's colors, but that was it. Kobolds were out of the question. Then Sara flipped the page and found the one entry of a faceless one that some crazy mage had gotten a reading from, and froze.

Her eyes flicked left and right, between the faceless's signature and her own. She did math, comparing how close her numbers were to its. They were close. Far too close. Even without math, the faceless one's signature had the same rising and falling spike pattern hers did.

Sara's face went pale and a cold pit settled in her stomach. With shaking hands, she reached over and closed the book, as if its cover was a mountain. With that done she leaned back in her seat and covered her face with her hands. All of a sudden she understood _very_ well why her magical signature had been locked up like that, why she could perform mental magic so naturally, everything. She also understood what exactly she was going to have to do to get the power of being an Archmage.

Her magic was almost identical to that of the faceless.


	9. Chapter 8: Servants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

After a few minutes of leaning back in the chair, she peeled her hands off her face and let out a long, drawn out groan.

_A faceless one. I have the magic of the faceless ones. Damn it._

Now what?

She stared at the books and papers and felt ill. How could it even be possible? Sure, it explained a lot of the... _nuances_ of her powers, but how? Her parents weren't Twilight Cultists, she'd read their minds - _Sorry Mom and Dad_ \- and knew it wasn't the case. What in the world could give her the powers of the damnable _Faceless?_

_Calm down,_ she told herself. _This doesn't change anything._

Her plan was a remarkable success though, she couldn't argue. She hadn't gone _extremely_ in depth with research yet, but she knew that the topic of the Old Gods was poorly researched for... obvious reasons. She could research them. She could find out more about them and, in doing so, find out more about her powers. But how? Moreover, how could she do it _safely?_ The magic of the Old Gods was infamous for being unimaginably corruptive.

But then why wasn't her magic corruptive? She wasn't corrupted. The animals she resurrected weren't corrupted. The people she read and changed weren't corrupted.

Maybe she'd have to put deliberate, corruptive intent into it. The other possibility was that she, having the magic naturally, was immune to the corruption. That didn't make sense though, otherwise everyone else _wouldn't_ be immune. Maybe it was both. It sounded like something worth researching.

She grabbed a pencil from a nearby container - the library was _filled_ with them - and copied down the faceless one's magical signature. She tucked that away into a pocket, then closed the books and put them back in their shelves. She grabbed the papers containing her own signature and stashed them away, then sat back down and sighed, thinking to herself.

First things first, she needed to find something to research about the Old Gods. That'd be easy, no doubt, since there was nearly nothing known about them, however she'd need to be absurdly specific; this was her Archmage thesis after all. After that she would need to present it to the Archmagister Board and get approval for enough funding, and unless she cobbled together something she could do entirely on her own, unlikely, Sara would then have to go find volunteers to go investigating the nature of the Old Gods.

_The Archmages know about my magic,_ she realized.

How could she have been so stupid? Of course her magical signature was confidential, she had the magic of the damned faceless. And the Archmages knew. Why hadn't they done anything with the information? Nobody fully knew what the faceless were capable of, so her wielding their magic without knowing what it was could do great harm...

_What if they have done something and I don't know it?!_ she thought, slowly working herself into a panic. What if they'd been expecting her to warp someone's mind to get her signature? What if - she looked around at everyone else using the library, the claustrophobic underground library - what if they had sent people to spy on her, or _worse?!_

_Calm down, Sara. Calm down. Get a grip!_

They had nothing they could do against her. They were unable to prove she'd done anything illegal, and if she made a good enough case, she could get funding for her research anyway, from outside sources if she had to. For certain, there would always be rich people she could suddenly _befriend._ That was a last resort though. She could do this. She _would_ do this. She just had to be smart about it.

First things first, she had to figure out what actually was known about the Old Gods so she wouldn't accidentally just tread old ground. She went to the shelves and began perusing for anything related to the topic of Old Gods. She found a history book on Azeroth's early history, which wouldn't contain too much in the way of magical knowledge, but better safe than sorry. There was a thin book detailing what was known about the faceless beneath Northrend, and another one listing effects of Old God corruption.

She went back to her table with all three books and sat, opening the first one. She read through it, going over the archaeological research that had been found. The Mantid, Nerubians, and Qiraji all had a progenitor species in the extinct 'Aqir', who had survived the Ordering of Azeroth and were only defeated by the trolls, some six thousand years before the War of the Ancients. Nothing useful. There were also records of the fates befalling all known Old Gods, which also wasn't of use.

The next book was far more useful, and in it were descriptions of powers displayed by the faceless. It was almost universally shadow magic - there were exceptions, such as General Vezax employing fire magic - that was described as being 'sticky'. Another feature that Sara's magic had recently started to display. Every spell she cast left a residue in the area affected, like fog, until dissipated. Though it hadn't _always_ done so, so maybe her magic would become corruptive with time?

The final book listed effects of the Old God's magic that had been noted. Everything from the forced evolution of the Aqir to the destruction of the failed World Tree in Northrend could be traced to them, and they'd even played a crucial role in the Shattering. Sara began making connections with what she'd learned about demons and fel magic in the past few years; Old God corruption seemed to do anything demonic corruption did, but _much_ more pervasively. People had come back from being corrupted by demons, but Sara didn't think there was any record of the same happening with Old Gods.

She flipped through the books and devoted as much of them to her incredibly memory as she could, then placed them back in their shelves, gathered her belongings, and booked it out of the too-far-underground library.

Sara took a deep breath of the fresh air once she was outside, then half-ran back to her living area. Everywhere she looked, she was certain people were looking at her. _They know,_ she thought. _They have to know. It's so obvious. Faceless magic explains everything. They have to know, they have to have figured it out..._

Sara slammed the door behind her as she slipped into her apartment, gasping for breath. Okay, she was safe, nobody was coming for her, and if they were she could blast a hole through their chest. Everything was going to be fine.

She went to her desk and pulled out a few pencils and sheets of paper, then went to writing down everything she had managed to memorize from the books. Her memory wasn't _quite_ photographic, and while she could pick things up quickly it wasn't a guarantee she would remember it long, so she had to write down everything right away. The less chance there was of someone being suspicious about her reading books on the Old Gods, the better. It took a few hours for her to jot it all down and her wrist burned by the end, but she finished in a timely manner.

There was a lot of time until exhaustion claimed her, so Sara spent the rest of the day brainstorming various research topics centered on the Old Gods. She wrote up a few drafts, then crumpled them up and tossed them over her back. Outside, the sun crashed under the horizon and stars speckled the sky, but she didn't stop working. It wasn't until long after midnight that Sara decided to stop writing, because she had work the next day. So she crawled into her bed and passed out, having dreams of tentacles bursting from the ground and dancing around her.

* * *

A week passed, and then another.

In that time Sara continued to create her research proposal, looked up how much funding she'd need, checked in on some of the upper class to mind control. She also got a few letters from her parents, mostly about the dreadfully dull gossip of Greenvale. But she didn't want to hurt their feelings, so in her return letters she pretended to care at least a little.

It was on the second week after discovering her faceless magic that Sara finished her research proposal. She'd thought ahead and made an appointment to have her proposal looked at, so she finished stacking up the papers. She wouldn't actually stand in front of the board, she'd simply have to drop it off and then wait for them to do the rest.

The abstract read about how the Old Gods had always menaced Azeroth and, until the final one was destroyed, perhaps always would. She also related to how it was discovered the destruction of all five Old Gods would annihilate all life on the planet, so the only logical conclusion was, before the Kingslayers found and destroyed the last of the five Old Gods, to find a way to reverse the spell they had cast on Azeroth.

The stack of papers then went on to highlight a detailed description of her planned experiment, which involved taking the magical signature of the Old Gods, mechanisms to reverse engineer the spell they had cast, and a variety of other things. The total cost, including travel and provisions, was about a hundred thousand gold. Sara had about eighty gold to her name; her job didn't pay _that_ well. If she wanted even to get the trip to Silithus and C'Thun payed for, she was going to need a lot of funding.

But for the time being, all she could do was hand in her proposal to the Wizard Sanctum's mailbox and wait. She decided that, if she were to be idle for the next few days waiting for approval or denial, or people breaking into her home trying to kill her, she might as well let off some steam.

Sara made her way out of the Mage Quarter and walked along the Canals. Stormwind was crowded at that time of the day, so she had to push past the throngs of people in order to get to the Trade District, and from there to the autumn colors of Old Town. The smell of aged wine and history drifted into her nose, and she exhaled sharply to clear her senses and headed towards the training grounds. The crowds thinned as she approached, while the number of armored guards standing at attention increased.

The training grounds were open to the public, and the training dummies provided by the Academy weren't sufficient for Sara. They shattered too easily. These however, _these_ were heavy-duty. The same brand the Kingslayers used. These training dummies could handle her wrath. Mostly.

Entering the tall, white-brick building, Sara turned a few corridors and passed a few doors. From the doors the sound of clashing steel and wood resounded, but she kept going until she found one that seemed to be empty. Placing her hands against the heavy wooden doors, she pushed them in. Inside was a circular room of white stone, with singed banners of the Alliance's lion-head plastering the walls. All around her were dummies of wood and straw, holding a mock sword and shield.

Once in the middle of the room, Sara reached behind her back and stretched her arms. Then she drew up her magic, and began.

Right away, she brought a glowing-purple hand to her chest and thrust it out to the left. A surge of unrefined shadow magic washed outwards with cataclysmic force, scouring dust and germs from the stone and colliding with the training dummy like a battering ram. It bent backwards, but refixed itself quickly. In that time, Sara turned to her right and held out both hands, unleashing another unfocused blast. That one caught three of the dummies, blasting away their magically-reinforced straw and sending them spinning wildly.

Sara tried to let her mind go blank as she kept unleashing her power. _Boom!_ One of the training dummies snapped in half from a thin ray of magic. _Boom!_ She sent dust flying from a blast that left a dummy headless. Huge amounts of magic coiled along her arms, turning sickly green and hurting her with its sheer magnitude. But as hard as she tried, her thoughts raced.

A faceless one! She had the magic of eldritch abominations from before the Ordering of Azeroth!

_Boom!_ Each hand let out a blast, each of which left a dummy without its sword arm.

And she hadn't even known it! For years, she'd been using some of the darkest magic known to the Alliance, throwing it around like Hallow's End candy!

_Boom!_ She brought both her arms together and raised them up over her head. Sara suddenly shot them outward, completely obliterating a dummy and leaving the adjacent ones half disintegrated.

And she wasn't the only one who knew. She was trying to convince the Archmages, who knew what she could do, to let her get within arm's length of an Old God! It was never going to work! They were going to decline her - best case scenario - and then she'd be stuck as a Magister for the rest of her life, going nowhere!

Sara curled over and, with a scream, stood and flung her arms out. The intensely bright green magic along her body flared outwards, turning into a violet shadow nova as it did and reducing the remaining training dummies to piles of straw.

With that done, Sara fell to the ground and moaned in pain, clutching her burning limbs amidst swirling, clinging darkness. "Damn it," she whispered. She'd forgotten to bring a staff with her, so she'd overchanneled. It'd pass in a few minutes, and if she didn't _repeatedly_ overchannel she wouldn't suffer the long term effects, but _damn it it hurt!_

"Holy shit!" came an astonished whisper from behind her. Immediately Sara got to her feet and spun around, holding a magic-engulfed arm at the intruder. Maria immediately backed up and held up her hands in surrender. "Whoa whoa, easy there! I was just watching, honest!"

"Ha!" came a little voice, prompting Sara to look down and to the right. "Sure ya were! Just watching, you were staring like a fish outta water! Never seen magic before, _mistress?_ " a little smoldering imp jeered.

Sara immediately pointed a finger at it and zapped it with a thin ray of shadow magic. The demon yelped and phased into transparency, blowing a raspberry at her. "Keep your pet leashed, Maria," she scowled. "Now what were you doing here?"

"Despite what Rulpit says I really was _just watching._ You've got a lot of magic you know that?" Maria stuck her head into the room and looked around, whistling. She waved a hand to try and blow away the sticky shadows in the room. "Wow, I do _not_ envy the clean up team's jobs - _whoa!_ "

In that time Sara had pulled Maria in, closed the door, and then slammed her against the bricks with a tether of her faceless magic. It extended out from one of her palms in a single beam, then divided in two at Maria's neck to pin her to the wall. "You've got ten seconds to tell me what you were really doing here," she scowled, secretly flooding Maria's mind with magic in order to see whether or not she'd lie.

"I saw you coming this way and I thought I'd catch up! I haven't seen you in a while so I was curious!" No lying. Sara let go of her magic and Maria brought a hand to her neck, massaging it. "Holy shit Sara, what is wrong with you?"

Idea!

Sara stumbled back, making a show of pinching her brow. "Sorry, sorry. I've been stressing out lately. Just submitted my research proposal for the Archmage title."

Maria nodded. "Yeah well, try not to decapitate me, yeah?" She got off the wall and chuckled. "So, what're you researching?"

Sara quirked a brow, looking at her sideways. "Why do you want to know?"

"I'm just curious, I was just wondering what you'd go for."

"Well, just between you and me, I've made the decision to research the Old Gods and their magic."

Maria's eyes bugged out comically and her little imp raised an eyebrow. "Wait, _what?!_ Sara, what in the world would drive you to do that?"

"Well think about it!" she said. "All of the Old Gods that died in recent memory are because of the Kingslayers. C'Thun, Yogg-Saron, the remnants of Y'Shaarj, and N'Zoth. Tell me, what happens if they screw up? Like, there's one more Old God out there somewhere. What happens if they go to it, and get smacked down like flies, huh? It's a terrible idea to put all our eggs in one basket like that!"

"I don't know Sara, the Liberality Confederacy's got a _pretty_ good track record when it comes to dealing with unstoppable horrors." She held up a hand and began counting off fingers. "Hakkar, the Old Gods you mentioned, the Lich King, Deathwing, Kil'jaeden..."

"Yeah yeah," Sara said. "Still a terrible idea. And second, how many of the Old Gods do you think are _really_ dead? When the Titans killed Y'Shaarj, it was at least another _sixty thousand years_ before the Sha disappeared, and they didn't exactly go away on their own. If the Titans couldn't just put down an Old God like that, we're supposed to believe the Liberality Confederacy _can?_ Can you imagine what's gonna bubble up from the Maelstrom in a few decades from now? Or from Silithus, or Northrend? We need to get ahead of the game!"

Maria went to open her mouth, but Sara was on a roll with convincing her. "And it's been harder each time. C'Thun didn't get a tentacle out of Ahn'Qiraj. Yogg-Saron took them the aid of Titan Watchers and it was a close thing. The Sha took months of trekking across Pandaria, and the war with N'Zoth and its naga took _years!_ Tell me, do you honestly believe that when this fifth Old God comes crawling out of the woodwork that we can afford to just, just point the Kingslayers at it - if they're even still _around_ by then - and say 'Deal with it'?"

The warlock was silent for a few minutes, a finger on her chin as she thought it over. "Huh, makes sense," she muttered. "So what're you planning to do?"

"I can't give you any details. For one thing I'm still waiting for funding, and two there's a prohibition against telling uninvolved people any technical details until the paper's published, some dumb plagiarism nonsense, but step one is to head to Silithus and get some accurate readings of C'Thun's magic. See what's going on with the leylines around Ahn'Qiraj, how far its magic spills from its body, that sort of thing."

Maria frowned. "Isn't that dangerous? Like, fingers turning into tentacles dangerous?"

"Like I said, I can't give you details but I _have_ taken safety precautions." She glowered at the shorter woman. "I spent a lot of time on this, Maria. Listen, I need to go, but if you're interested - and I get funding - there'll be posters for people to sign up for the trip. Hey, 'I spent months poking around the remains of Yogg-Saron and lived to tell the tale' looks good on your résumé." Sara winked, and Maria giggled. "Check around in a few days, I should have the answer by then."

"Right. So where're you going?"

Sara shrugged. "Don't know yet. Yesterday I took a walk in the Park, so that's out. I'll figure something out. I'll track you down if I hear back."

* * *

She heard back.

Of course she didn't track down Maria, because she didn't care about her much at all. The important thing was that, against all of Sara's worries and paranoia, the council had approved her research proposal and had given her a grant of... seventy five thousand gold, citing that certain things she desired were impractical. Of course they were impractical, they were part of her own secret research to figure out why she had faceless magic.

Did they know, and that was why they didn't give her the funding? Were they content to just dangle her away from the secret with financial means?

_You're being paranoid again,_ she told herself. _They have no way of knowing you know. Any inferences they make on their part are pure speculation, because I've been very careful to hide that I know about what I can do._

At least she could move forward. No more free time, from here on out she was busy 24/7. She wrote a letter to her parents letting them know she was going to be busy, and another letter to Leira's guild asking them to tell her when she returned. Then, she was _busy busy busy!_

First thing she needed was people helping her, because on her own this would be a monumental task to perform. So she went to an artist and commissioned - for an, ahem, generously low price - pictures. Said picture was of an alliance soldier facing a Prime Sha. In one hand he held a sword, and in the other a Noblegarden basket with a hole in it. Through said hole fell out an egg with 'Liberality Confederacy' written on it. Below the soldier were the words: DON'T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET! Those words were followed by information on Sara's expedition and where to get more information. She had several of those posters made and plastered all around the Mage Quarter, and while there weren't a lot of people who were eager to go poking around the corpses of Old Gods, she got enough people signing up to help her. Including Maria.

Silithus was on the other side of the planet. Portals would help, but moving so many items through a portal was... risky, not to mention expensive. As a result, Sara needed a boat to Rut'theran Village, and from there to the rebuilt Auberdine. From there it'd be a long trip by air to Cenarion Hold. From there, a trudge across the desert to Ahn'Qiraj. There they'd have to show the Cenarion druids keeping watch over the city their authorization so they could go in. Then the long trip to the grave of C'Thun - _underground, eugh_ \- with long measurements to be taken, then the return trip, provisions, the Maelstrom for N'Zoth, Pandaria, Ulduar, analyzing all the data once she got back...

Sara's head hurt. Why couldn't they just wing it?

To make matters worse, she was still short twenty five thousand gold, so she wouldn't be able to get her hands on the instruments needed to research her own magic. Without that she'd at least be able to perform her basic research into becoming an Archmage, but that wasn't at the forefront of her mind. She wanted to know _why_ she had the magic she did, and she wanted to know right away!

Ugh. Worrying herself would do no good. She needed to go home and lay down. Ever since getting her research approved it was work, work, and more work. Not that she'd expected any different but _for goodness sake!_ She couldn't go out on walks, she couldn't spar, she couldn't practice her magic, she couldn't do anything except fill out forms, drink coffee, listen to people whispering behind her back about 'that crazy warlock going to go poking gods' _,_ talk to people coming onto the voyage, again and again and _again!_ It'd all be worth it once she had the answers to her magic and the power of an Archmage but the workload made her want to just go out onto the street and start KILLING EVERYONE!

She paused from walking back to her apartment and leaned against a building. Calm. She was calm.

It was late afternoon by the time Sara got back to the apartment complex. She checked through the mail and raised an eyebrow at having received a letter. She wasn't expecting a letter. It was addressed to her from the Kingslayers, so that was... certainly unexpected.

A few minutes later she was inside her apartment suite, door locked behind her. Sara lay down on her bed and held the letter up with one hand. With the other hand she sliced it open with shadow magic so the letter would fall out, obliterated the envelope, and took the letter in one hand. Another one fell out behind it. Two letters? Sara grunted and began reading the first one.

_Dear Ms. Sara Smithers,_

_We here at the Liberality Confederacy make it our business to know as many going-ons as possible in Azeroth and beyond. To that end your expedition to the bodies of Azeroth's four known Old Gods has not gone unnoticed and, to be frank, we approve. We share your concerns regarding Azeroth's final Old God, and were we less busy we would take a more direct approach in aiding you with your research. Unfortunately, duty calls and while we are obligated not to tell you why we are so busy due to secrecy, we can lend you aid indirectly. Alongside this letter is a bank note for our guild bank, authorizing you to withdraw ten thousand gold for the purposes of your experiment so that you may take better readings. We wish you the best of luck with your research, and hope that we may all benefit from it._

_Sincerely,_

_Torig Stormhoof, Liberality Confederacy Accountant_

Sara blinked, tossed the letter to the side, and picked up the other. Sure enough, there it was. A check for ten thousand gold and a smile on her face. Then she frowned. It was a lot, but it wasn't enough. She was still fifteen thousand short of the equipment she'd need to analyze herself.

"Damn it all," she muttered. Unless she got even more funding from some mysterious source, she was... going to have to wait. She hated waiting.

Oh well. She'd done all she could do for the day, and there was nothing more she could do unless she got some rest. Sara stood from her bed and tucked both the letter and bank note away safely, locking them in a drawer. She went to the washroom and brushed her teeth, bathed quickly, then put on a long, dull green sleeping gown. Sara got into her bed, sleeping above the covers, and quickly passed out, ready to awaken next morning and continue the preparations for next week's departure.

And then -

There was something pressed to her throat and she was being shaken awake. Sara's eyes snapped open and she stared up at a leering, masked face. Her first instinct was to open her mouth, but one of his hands were clamped over her mouth, and the other - her eyes glanced down - was holding a knife to her throat. There was something like a vice crushing her soul, strangling her magic _almost_ too much for her to use it.

"If I so much as see a glimmer of magic," the man whispered in a dark voice. "You die. I'm going to take my hand off your mouth now, and you'll stay quiet. Get me?"

Sara nodded, bringing tears to her eyes. He took the hand off, using it to steady the blade at her neck. "P-Please, don't hurt me," she whimpered pitifully.

"That might not be necessary. Now, let me explain things to you. Your little adventure in planning hasn't gone unnoticed. I represent a certain group _keenly_ interested in your expedition. So keenly, that you're going to fire some of your apprentices in favor of our own men coming along. You won't say a word to anyone. You'll make them out to be incompetent, or find some other manner. Fail to do so and, well... you see how easy it was for me to get to you."

"Okay, okay," she whispered, tears moving down her cheeks. "I'll do it, just don't k-kill me," Sara stammered.

"I'm glad we've come to an agreement. Don't worry about hiring the wrong people, they'll introduce themselves to you." He put the knife away and began to leave.

_You've just made the biggest mistake of your life,_ she thought.

Sara put out the quiver in her voice and her eyes dried. Once he was two yards away she sat up in her bed and pointed a hand at him, calling up her magic. It was like squeezing through a door shut almost too tight, and it hurt forcing so much magic through her body, but a brilliant green light shone at the end of her hand regardless.

The intruder noticed the illumination and turned around, eyes wide through his ski mask. "How are you - " That was the last thing he said, because a thick green laser, with darker emerald lightning flashing around it, exploded from Sara and struck him center mass. His knife clattered to the ground moments before his body landed with a thud. From his pocket came a little ring. It was a magic suppressor, made of iron and made brittle by hundreds of overlapping purple runes.

She swung out of bed and wiped her crocodile tears away, before smashing the anti-magic device underfoot with a satisfying crunch. Sara sauntered over to the corpse, tisking all the way. She wanted answers, and she was going to get them. First things first though, she reached her magic into his brain. The violet lines were still visible, but no pulses went through them. That wouldn't stop her from mani -

_Knock knock knock!_ Sara jumped, and then a man's voice sounded in. "Hey Sara, everything okay in there? I heard you fall out, you okay?"

"I'm fine!" she shouted at her suite-mate. "Go away!"

There was a pause. "Alright, alright, I see." Footsteps, and he was gone.

... from manipulating his thoughts. She reached for the brain stem and with a few snips paralyzed him. Then she severed his vocal cords. Now that those were done, she picked up his knife. It was a fancy knife. Golden hilt, engraved with lions and eagles, shining metal. She was going to keep it, so she put it on her desk and walked over to her closet. She fetched out a jeweled staff. It wasn't a fancy one by any means. Basic wooden shaft, and a blue channeling crystal on the end to keep the strain of magic off her body. With the staff in her right hand, she stood over the man.

He was on his back. The first thing Sara did was take the mask off, revealing a handsome man in his early thirties with grayish hair, tan skin, and well defined features.

"Well," she whispered. "No time like the present." Necrotic green energies shivered along her body, flickering in and around her staff. She reached into the man who's life she'd extinguished like a candle and searched. His soul hadn't gotten far, so she grabbed onto it and began dragging it back against what seemed like a current of water. Viridian light flowed off his body as Sara shoved it back into his corpse and, with a shock of magic, restarted his bodily functions.

She sagged and held onto the staff like a crutch as he sputtered to life. She'd never actually brought a person back to life before, and it was like getting kicked in the chest. Sara took a few minutes to get her breath back, then tossed her staff onto her bed and glowered at him.

"I don't know what you were thinking," she told the panicked grey eyes. "To suppress my level of magic you need a field generator made of cobalt, not steel, and you should've knocked me out just in case. But oh well. Now you're here. With me. And my magic's both paralyzed you and rendered you mute." Her voice turned sweet. "Now, _friend,_ I'm going to give you back your voice, but in case you're thinking about shouting try and remember who's the intruder here and who's..." She sniffled. "The poor young woman, assaulted in her sleep, who defended herself against the scary, creepy man who held a knife to her throat." His eyes widened, then narrowed. "Alright, here's your voice." She reconnected the lines in his brain, allowing him access to his vocal cords again.

"What the fuck did you do to me?!" he hissed. "It was so... so cold, and dark, and empty..."

"I killed you and brought you back to life. You might want to think about your life choices, if that's the afterlife you tasted." She sat by him, and his head followed her. "Now, I'm curious. Who exactly are you? What were you doing here, and who are these people you want to come with me to the corpses of the Old Gods?"

"Up yours! You may as well kill me again, you're not getting a word out of me."

Sara smirked. "We'll see about that." She held another hand at him, keeping the magic weak enough to just be a violet glow instead of green. Sara reached his hearing center and began to construct a message, made in his own voice. She also created a basic mind reading link so she could hear the response.

"What are you doing to me?!"

"Casting a truth spell," she lied. Then, in his own voice, she whispered to his mind, _'Oh no. She'll discover us with that spell!'_

His mind did the rest. _'Unless I can lie by omission. I can't tell her a lie, but I don't have to tell her it's the Twilight's Hammer.'_

Her heartrate sped up a bit. The Twilight's... oh. She'd gotten herself into some deep trouble, hadn't she? Still, she could play off of that. After all, there was a decent chance they didn't know about her magic, and she could lie about what she wanted from the expedition.

"Well well well," she whispered. "What do we have here? The Twilight's Hammer."

"How did you - "

"I lied about the truth spell. How dumb do you think I am?" she asked, looking at him condescendingly. Sara looked over to her windows; the curtains had been drawn, but there was still moonlight pouring through. "Twilight's Hammer. Now isn't that something? Finally come crawling out of the woodwork like the cockroaches you are. But... I'm a forgiving woman, whoever you are. Truth be told we can help each other. Tell me, do you know why I wish to research the Old Gods?"

"Your posters tell enough. If you succeed in your mission you'll give this fleeting world more tools to use against our masters. Admirable attempt, but foolish."

"Right, that's a lie. I admit the Old Gods are a... concern to my wellbeing, but it's hardly the primary motivation. First, I just needed a poorly researched topic for my Archmage thesis. Nothing really philanthropist about that. Second, I don't have human magic." She held up her left hand, glowing with an orb of purple, green and black power. She made a figure eight that left a trail of dark mist. "My magical signature was under heavier security than most, but I got my hands on it. Did you know that I have the same exact -" Not really 'exact' but what he didn't know wouldn't hurt her. "- magic as the faceless ones?" His eyes went wide in surprise. "Yes, very curious, don't you think?"

"How do you have the power of the-them?" he asked, shaking.

"I don't know." She climbed over him, face to face. "But I intend to figure out. Now, how about a little quid pro quo, hmm? The original funding I requested was one hundred thousand gold, more or less. But I only got eighty five thousand gold to fund this journey. In that missing fourteen thousand eight hundred seventy two is what I need for my personal research. Figure out what my link is to the Old Gods. Hey, maybe I can even get the favor of the fifth, then I won't exactly need to worry about turning in my research." He was eating it up, she could tell by how intently he looked at her as she continued speaking. "So tell me, how hard would it be for you to get me my fifteen grand, in exchange for your underlings hitching a ride to Silithus? I don't really care about the people coming with me, they're just there to make my journey easier." She winked. "Might be nice to have a conversation with someone who _understands._ "

She pulled away and let him think. "It... would not be difficult. My contractor is a member of Stormwind's business elite -" And one of them was in the Hammer? Oh dear. She'd have to mind-control someone into giving his identity. "- so fifteen thousand is something he can part with for the Masters. And you truly have the power of the Old Gods themselves?"

"I brought you back from the dead, separated your mind and body, read your thoughts, and implanted some of my own. Take a guess. Now, are you going to help me learn about our... mutual benefactors, or do I need to put you back to rest?" she asked with a menacing flicker of energy.

"No!" he breathed. "No, that won't be necessary. I shall deliver the message."

"Good. Tell whoever sent you that I'll be sleeping with one eye open from now on." She walked away from him and rested on the bed. "Take your precious dagger," she said as she gave him back full control over his limbs. He jerked, feeling himself over for any missing parts at the same time that Sara encased herself and her bed in a glistening green barrier. He got to his feet and scooped up his belongings. "You let yourself in, you can let yourself out. Now." She narrowed her eyes. "Get out of my sight," she spat.

He did, moving for the window and stealthily gliding out of sight. Once he was gone, Sara collapsed in her bed and held a hand to her pounding heart.

"Holy shit," she muttered to nobody in particular. "I almost died." She giggled. That had been the most exciting moments of her _life!_ She probably shouldn't make a habit out of nearly getting murdered in her sleep, but _what a rush!_ Then she frowned. "The Twilight's Hammer," she whispered, tasting the cult's name. A glance at her desk's clock confirmed it was two thirty in the morning. _Looks like I've got some late night reading to do._

But on the plus side, she was getting everything she needed. Fifteen thousand more gold put her at exactly the amount needed for her expedition. Now she could reach the Old Gods and finally, finally figure out what was wrong with her shadow magic. Though she'd also be bringing members of the Twilight's Hammer in proximity to C'Thun. Last time that happened they nearly revived the Old God.

Eh. She'd figure out something later. For now, she needed to read up on the Hammer.


	10. Chapter 9: Hateful, Angry People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

Just as October swung around and stores in the Trade District started offering more candy, Sara's expedition was ready.

As promised, the Twilight's Hammer mysteriously deposited a note for fifteen thousand gold into her mailbox, as well as a list of people to take with her. Sara took the list and referenced it with other people she wanted to take. There were a dozen people the Hammer wanted to bring, which made her fists clench. She didn't want to bring the Hammer along to C'Thun. They were unqualified, incompetent. There was also the whole 'doomsday cult' thing, but she could forgive that so long as they made something extremely interesting happen on the trip there.

She made the cuts over the course of a week, so nobody would get too suspicious. She sent a letter to the twelve people she dropped, and the cult obviously didn't need to be interviewed. Now she'd have with her Eric Hammil, Turodin Steelforge, and... and she didn't care about their names.

Then she had to go down to Stormwind Harbor and get a place for everyone on the boat. She tried to get four rooms: One for her, one for the delicate equipment, one for the Hammer, and another for everyone else. That didn't happen though, so she was stuck with cramming herself and the equipment in with the non-cultists on her expedition. Including Maria. Ugh. Couldn't stand that warlock. So bubbly, cheerful, always butting into her business. Shame she was competent.

At the moment, Sara found herself with something she hadn't had in a while. Free time. She took the opportunity to go for a walk around Stormwind, stretch her legs while she still could. The sky was dark and grey, rumbling deliciously with lightning and the promise of rain. She hummed a light tune as she hopped from stone to stone, feeling her light blue skirt catch in the wind. Sara got a few looks, but what did she care? Not even the fact that she was bringing a paladin could bring down her spirits. She was done packing, she was done with the preparations, _everything was done_ and all she had to do was be on the boat in a few hours and they'd be on their way to Kalimdor.

Sara danced her way to a stone bench and draped herself on it. She pointed a hand at a nearby squirrel. The squirrel looked back at her, and then a tiny flicker of black-purple-green shadow in her hand made it collapse and start writhing in agony. Giggling, she made it dance in circles as she flooded the pain center of its brain, before abruptly snuffing out its life. Sara found another animal to torture to death, and then another one. By the time she'd killed five - nobody was around to see her do so - she felt lighter than she had in a long, long time.

A glance at a nearby clock tower informed her it was high noon. Sara sighed. "Well, time to get moving," she told herself. She let go of a snake and let it slither away with its life. When it was gone she made her way out of the Park and to the Canals.

The water in the Canals rippled under the powerful winds, kicked up into waves that smashed and frothed into the sides. There were a few people around with closed umbrellas, hurrying to get to their destinations before the rain inevitably began to fall. Sara for her part walked with a lazy stride north, until she reached the Stormwind Harbor.

The vast ocean spread out before her, indomitable and unknowable. Members of the Alliance walked all around her, scurrying back and forth like little ants. She made her way down the stairs, taking them two at a time and leaping the last four, wincing when her legs flared in pain. But that was alright, because today the journey was starting!

Sara took the pier to the left. The sailboat that had once docked at its end was replaced by an Icebreaker such as the type that spearheaded the invasion of Northrend. It made sense, given how it was less reliant on the weather which... admittedly wasn't looking favorable for sailboats at the moment.

She walked past the guards with barely a glance at them. The boat was right there. Just a few more yards and she'd be on it, away to Kalimdor, away from Stormwind, away from the Archmages and their secrets, their knowing, their unknown machinations, always looking at her, spying on her, not letting her have a moment to herself -

\- she was on the boat.

The wood was wet and dark beneath her shoes, seeming to creak. For a moment she stumbled as the boat rocked on the strong waves, throwing her forward. Then she stumbled back and found her balance, laughing lightly. Oh, she was going to have fun with _that._

Someone came up to her, wearing a rain jacket and a broad hat. "Miss Sara Smithers?" the dark skinned man asked.

She turned to him, too enthralled with the rocking of the ship to be annoyed. "Yes?" she asked, still smiling.

"I'm glad you could make it. We'll be departing in half an hour, so if you want to go below deck and make yourself comfortable, now'd be the time to do so. It'll be a bit rough on deck thanks to this storm and I wouldn't want you hurt."

She rolled her eyes, but he had a point. And besides, the boat would rock just the same below deck as above. Sara went for the door near the back end of the ship and descended the stairs, swaying back and forth as waves had their way with the boat. She tumbled into a wall and giggled, bracing herself against it and pushing herself out.

Sara found the first room where she and everyone else from the Mage Quarter would sleep during the trip. She opened the door up and peered inside. There was everyone. Humans, high elves, gnomes, and one worgen in his animal form. The room was claustrophobic, but she didn't mind. A lantern hung from the ceiling, burning oil. Bunks were pressed against the wall, leaving a line in the middle of the room just wide enough for a single person to pass through. Most of the dozen people present were in their bunks, entertaining themselves with various knickknacks they'd brought with themselves. One woman cradled a bucket, green in the face. Under the beds were bags containing everyone's personal belongings, and stacked against the back were two wooden boxes, a yard on each side, containing the small but sensitive equipment they were bringing.

"Hey Sara!" Maria said, sitting up. "Glad you made it."

"Yes, I'm sure you are," she muttered. Sara raised her voice. "Alright, I'm glad you've all made it here. I'll be going next door to see everyone else is settled. If you have any problems, try and get the attention of the crew or the paladin coming with us." It was a sacrifice she'd decided make in order to placate the Archmage Council. She would bring a wielder of the Holy Light to help ward against any corruption. They'd have to stay far from the corpses of the Old Gods though, lest the Light interfere with readings.

The woman holding the bucket groaned.

"Yes, like you. Strap in everyone, and please try not to kill each other." If only because resurrecting people was hard. "After all, we've all got a month to really get to know each other." The boat rocked in the other direction, making Sara briefly lose her footing. She smiled wider. "Bye now." She stepped out and closed the door, going down the hallway to its very end. She stopped before the door and took a deep breath, snapping her expression to anger. She had yet to see the members of the Twilight's Hammer she was bringing. Sara had tried to, but simply didn't get the chance until that moment.

She slammed her fist into the door once, twice, then opened it hard. "Alright, are we all here?" she asked, taking a look around. The room was laid out the same way as the other one, and packed to the brim. Most of the members here were those that could fit into being mages and warlocks. Humans, elves, a single draenei and - _WAIT WHAT?!_

She locked eyes with none other than _Leira,_ and the draenei's eyes went wide. Sara's friend looked just as she remembered. A head taller than her, horns curved backwards with a short mop of black hair. She wore a casual red shirt and blue pants.

Sara didn't say anything. "Well?" she barked. "Are we all here?"

A high elf leaning against the wall, in a shadowed corner, spoke up. "We are. We are simply awaiting departure. Is everything set on your end?"

She scoffed. "Of course they are. We have the authorization letters, so the Cenarion Circle will let us into Ahn'Qiraj." She held up a hand and forced darkness to play across it. She pointed a finger at the elf. "They need me to be around though, or they're just pieces of paper. No funny business." As far as they knew, the magic was just for intimidation, but she secretly wove a telepathy link with Leira. Both she and Leira stood still, so it was easy. When it was done, a shiver was drawn out of the draenei. She turned around and slammed the door behind her.

_'Explain. Now!'_ she thundered into the draenei's mind.

_'Sara? What the shit you doing here?'_

_'What am_ I _doing here? What are you doing in the damn Twilight's Hammer?!'_

_'Okay, I can see why you might be upset but - '_

_'Damn right I'm upset! What are you thinking?!'_

_'If you'd let me finish!'_

_'... sorry,'_ she sent.

_'Remember how I told you I was going to be away on mission? I'm spying on the Hammer. I don't know what they're doing though, I'm still an initiate. Sara, what the fuck's going on?'_

_'I'm doing my Archmage thesis on the Old Gods. The Hammer wanted to hitch a ride to C'Thun, so I tricked them into giving me fifteen thousand gold.'_

_'... you do realize you're bringing the Twilight's Hammer to within spitting distance of an Old God?'_

Still in the hallway, Sara's left eye twitched. _'I'm working on it!'_

_'So... wow. Small world huh?'_

She couldn't help but smile. _'Yeah, what are the odds? So, how're you holding up in the Hammer?'_

_'These people are going to make me tear my own horns off! They're insane, Sara!'_

_'Tell me something I don't know,'_ she sent, amused. _'You gonna be alright?'_

_'Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Everything else aside though, it's great seeing you again. I_ was _going to head back to Ironforge and report the cult's activities to the guild, but looks like I'm wrapped up in this.'_

_'Why?'_ Sara asked. She started moving again, going to the other room, slipping inside, and sliding into her bottom bunk. With the box of equipment next to her, it decently shut her off from everyone outside. She stared at the bed on top of her, still focused on Leira.

_'If I leave, they'll get suspicious. Simple as that. So... we better figure out a way to stop them quick.'_

_'We've got a month until our boat arrives, and another week or so to reach Ahn'Qiraj. We'll think of something.'_

_'Hope so, Sara. Hey, you should keep this link open, just in case.'_

_'I'll be able to hear your dreams, and vice versa,'_ she warned. She liked Leira and all, but some things were meant to stay private.

There was a tense pause, which made Sara start drumming her fingers in nervousness. _'Um, nevermind. Break the link. Feels so creepy anyway.'_

_'Got it. Take care. Remind me to explain why I think you feel so off about my magic.'_ Before Leira could reply, Sara flared her shadow magic and ended the telepathic link. She let out a long breath she hadn't been aware she was holding.

Oh boy.

Leira was here. And she was undercover in the most infamous organization in Azeroth's history. Sara was dragging Leira to the Old Gods. And she'd just promised to tell her that she wielded the powers of the faceless.

Maybe she could lie about that? She wasn't sure she wanted Leira to know. Sara didn't want to know what Leira would think about her if she ever learned. She didn't want to lie to Leira though! Sara could trust her, right? Surely Leira would just brush it off, laughing and calling it 'no big deal', how it wasn't the powers but what you did with them. Surely.

She didn't know, but as she was lost in thought there was a lurch as the ship went into motion. Sara reminded herself she still needed to find the paladin, some dwarf and have a discussion with him about what to expect in Silithus. After all, it hadn't been the Cenarian Druids who'd cleaned out C'Thun's chamber after its collapse...

The people around her made small talk with each other, but Sara's strategy of hiding behind the equipment was a success. As the first few hours of the voyage passed, the rocking of the ship eased up and Sara felt that if she went topside, the crew wouldn't yell at her since they were probably out of the storm. She eased herself out from between the boxes and stood, stretching and cracking her neck. She walked the short distance out of the room and up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

A blast of salty air hit her in the face when she surfaced, and the intense light of the sun made her blink. The ship's crew was mostly absent. There was the captain at the wheel, with instruments to help guide the ship, and a few others making sure they didn't die, but beyond that the deck was mostly bare. Some of the other passengers on the ship were also present, talking with each other in the refreshing ocean air. A pair of night elves, a man and a young girl, and a dwarf that was hard for her to look at.

The dwarven man had blazing red hair, and the type of large, bushy beard that was the stereotype of their people. He was impressively tanned and heavily muscled from what must've been decades of physical exercise, and he was clad in a plain white shirt and baggy blue pants. At first Sara thought the dwarf had no shoes, but if she looked closer she saw he simply wore skin-colored sandals. Sara wasn't sure it was him, but she decide to take her chances.

With the boat still swaying beneath her, she walked over to the dwarf and put on a gentle smile. "Hello. Fardol Brighthammer is it?" It was hard for her to look directly at him, as if she was trying to stare at the sun.

The dwarf looked up at her and grinned. "Yeah, that'd be me!" He jumped from the bench to his feet and reached up a hand to shake hers. "I'm assumin' yer Sara Smithers?" She nodded. "Ah, good to finally meet ya." He winked. "Don't ya be worrying, the Light will protect ya from the Old God, and me and my hammer will keep any of the bugs from hurtin' ya."

Sara severely doubted she'd need his help. Nevertheless, he was a paladin. She could trust him, since their kind tended to be all about justice, truth, et cetera. "I'm thankful to hear that. However, I need to talk to you in private."

He raised an eyebrow. "Well, sure lass. Where you want to go?"

"Nowhere, I can cast a telepathy spell."

Fardol shrugged, as if telepathy was just part of his day to day life. "Okie then, go for it." Sara summoned her shadow magic, quickly weaving a link between her and Fardol's mind. He shivered when the spell was cast, but otherwise betrayed no discomfort.

_'How's this?'_ she heard him say.

So that nobody would be confused about two people just staring at each other, she sat next to him. 'Excellent. _Now, I need to inform you of a situation, but keep it hushed and let me explain. Half of the people I am bringing with me are members of the Twilight's Hammer. Originally they tried to threaten me into bringing them along, but I turned the tables and got them to pay me fifteen thousand gold to tag along. One of their numbers, the draenei Leira - I don't know what name she's going by now - is both spying on them and a close friend of mine.'_

The paladin blinked, and brought his hand to his face. _'Oy, ya sure got yourself in a pickle there, lass. Shouldn't have made a deal with the Hammer, even for fifteen grand. They'll make ya pay for it in their own way. They always do.'_

_'I know that!'_ she snapped. _'But if I can use it to learn more about the Old Gods, it'll be worth it!'_ Technically to learn more about herself. _'The problem is I don't know what I can do about them. I was thinking about killing them all in their sleep, but that's only if they don't have anyone awake and keeping watch. And if we get into a fight on the boat, the boat will probably sink. And I'm not sure about how well we can fight them. The people coming with me aren't especially powerful in their fields. Most of them aren't even graduated magisters.'_

_'I see the issue here,'_ he said. _'What about you?'_

Sara frowned. _'I can take them. I have a higher chance of being struck by lightning than any one of them being as powerful as me.'_ She had the magic of the faceless ones, and a lot of it to boot. What could they _possibly_ do to hurt her?

As if hearing her untransmitted thoughts, Fardol narrowed his eyes. _'Humility, Sara. Raw power ain't everything, and ya never know what your opponents have up their sleeves. Let's just keep watch on them, yeah? I'm thinkin' that when we get to Silithus, we let the Cenarian druids in on this.'_

_'Yes,'_ she thought. _'Unfortunately, they're not entirely dead weight. They don't have the skills to operate the instruments we need but I can teach them. Without them I'm down half of my assistants.'_

_'Don't even think about it,'_ he cautioned. _'We can spend more time at the body of C'Thun if we need to, but the moment the opportunity presents itself you have to kill them. The Twilight's Hammer is simply too big of a threat to do anything else, lass. Take my word for it.'_

She pursed her lips. _'Fine. Though last I checked the Hammer was torn apart after the Cataclysm ended.'_

_'That was thirty years ago. Plenty of time to get their feet under them again. Listen lass, I'll keep yer secret, but once we get to Ahn'Qiraj and you don't need em' to carry around equipment, they need to meet their maker. If you absolutely need nobody to know, we can say the Qiraji killed them. Big tragedy and all.'_

Sara sighed. _'Fine. Thank you for your assistance, sir. I'm just stuck between a rock and a hard place.'_

_'Yeah, I know that feeling. If ya ever need me, I'm two floors down, second door on the left. Don't be a stranger, Sara.'_

_'I'll keep that in mind,'_ she said. Sara stood and undid the telepathic link, and decide to walk around the swaying ship and occupy her mind as the last bits of shoreline vanished from sight.

* * *

The voyage passed in monotony, but it was the sort of monotony Sara tolerated. Each day she could go to the deck and mesmerize herself with the endless, churning ocean waves, always reliable in their unpredictability. She liked to play a little game with herself, crowning the biggest wave she saw each day as the victor, only to be unseated when she saw a bigger one. Now and then the tropical waters stirred up a storm, but the ship successfully steered away from them. All Sara could do was lean against the railing and gaze longingly upon the colossal, anvil-shaped clouds. Everyone else was doing alright - except for that one woman who was seasick - and the rest of the passengers gave her no trouble. Meals were served at six, noon, and six on the dot, consisting mostly of seafood to her endless amusement.

A week passed, then another week passed. They swerved past the grip of the Maelstrom, so it never came into sight. The Twilight's Hammer mostly kept to themselves, no surprise. Sara also kept to herself, except for when Leira had some spare time and they could share a conversation either by words or thoughts.

With little more than half of the trip behind them and Kalimdor 'fast' approaching, Sara found herself beneath partly cloudy skies and looking down into the ocean.

She heard a faint _clip clop_ behind her grow closer and glanced over her shoulders. Leira all but collapsed next to her, resting her head against the rail. Sara's eyes widened. "Are you alright?" she asked, worried. She didn't know exactly what initiates in the Twilight's Hammer underwent, but she doubted it was anything pleasant.

The tall - _so_ tall - draenei grunted. "I'll live," she breathed. She looked around. "So do you really spend all your time up here?"

"More now than at the start of the trip, why?" she asked.

Leira poked her in the arm and grinned. "Because you're getting pretty tan." Leira narrowed her eyes, looking closer, and then winced. "Oh, sunburns too."

"Yeah yeah." Sara swatted her hand away. "Didn't mean to, but I really like it up here. Guess it'll help a bit for Silithus. Maybe."

"Isn't the whole 'tans protect against sunburns' thing a myth?" Leira asked.

Sara paused, then shrugged and decided to change the subject. She leaned over the rail, looking at the dark water below. "How deep do you think the water is right now?"

"Dunno. How deep do oceans usually get?"

"Beats me. I'm a scholar of magic, not oceans. Must be pretty deep though. I mean, look at this." She dangled a hand over the edge and began channeling magic into her fist. The power went from black orbs to swirling purple, then changed in hue until it was _almost_ necrotic green. Sara opened her hand so her palm was pointing straight down and shot a narrow beam of raw mana straight down. The violet magic blasted into the water, displacing exactly none of it. It was visible a few dozen yards down, but beyond that the inky depths of the ocean swallowed the magic up.

"My magic can't even get close to the bottom. Kinda explains why Neptulon's the strongest of the elemental lords." She ended her magic and turned to Leira.

Leira whistled. "Yeah. Think he's watching us?"

Sara shrugged. "Beats me. Elementals are weird. Or so I hear." She shrugged. "So, any ideas about the Hammer?"

Leira frowned and tapped her head, right where her horns started. Sara nodded and opened up a telepathy link, though with slight reluctance. Who knew when her magic would begin harming on principle? _'Not yet,'_ Leira said. _'I mean, the plan was at first to just observe them, come back, and then the entire guild brings the hammer down on them.'_ Sara chocked back a laugh. _'Pun intended. Problem is I didn't get any fucking warning, they were just suddenly herding us onto a boat to go visit C'Thun for Light knows what reason. Maybe they're gonna give resurrecting him another whack.'_

_'Ridiculous. The longer something's dead the harder it is to bring them back. It's been over thirty years since C'Thun died. There's no way.'_

_'They might not know that.'_ Leira punched her lightly in the arm, making Sara wince. Leira was pretty strong given all the training she'd put into becoming a warrior. _'Not everyone's as knowledgeable of resurrection as you. Say, you don't think they want you to - '_

_'Out of the question. I can barely bring back a human who'd died a minute ago. And if they don't know that, and try to force me to... '_ She held up a hand and let green magic flicker menacingly across it, despite how much it pained her to make it green.

Leira rolled her eyes when she put out the magic - it was tricky to see since her eyes glowed, but Sara could tell. _'Right, magic. You know, there's an easy way to get around spellcasters.'_

_'Really? What?'_

Before Sara knew what happened, Leira lashed out and gently brushed a hand across her throat, laughing. Sara bristled. "Boom. My sword just cut your throat open."

It was Sara's turn to roll her eyes. "Very funny. But yeah, I'm sure we'll think of something. I mean, we still have all the time until we reach land, then we have to travel across the entire fucking _continent_ to Silithus."

_'Hope so. I'll keep you up to date if I hear anything.'_

_'I'm thinking maybe I'll go chat with whoever's in charge of the cult around here. Flex my authority.'_ It was more like 'flex my faceless magic authority' but Sara was putting off telling Leira.

A tense silenced lapsed between them. A particularly powerful wave - strongest all day - smashed into the ship and sent up spray. _'So,'_ Sara sent. _'What's your guild like?'_

Leira visibly brightened, and glimmer entered her eyes. _'It's great! Everyone there's wonderful. Well, except for Alex. He always sulks in the corner glaring at everyone, you two'd get along. There's also this dwarf, Anra, I go out drinking with her and her friends on the weekends. You should at least stop by once, let down your hair a little.'_

_'Thanks for the offer, but I have plenty of fun on my own. Besides, the Deeprun Tram scares me. Anyway, catch up with you later. I'm gonna go chat with the cult leader. That high elf right?'_

_'Yeah, but stay on your toes. Higris is a very... disturbed person.'_

_'I'll keep it in mind.'_ She stood from where she leaned against the boat and cut the link, heading below deck.

She formulated a plan. For the Hammer, she needed to be direct and forceful, make it known in abundant terms that _she_ was the one in command. _She_ was the one calling the shots, not them. Sara forced her elated smile to crumble into a scowl as she approached the Hammer's quarters. Once before the door she took a deep breath to steady her nerves. Then she slammed open the door, glided inside with the grace of a hurricane, and slammed the door behind her just as hard.

She found the high elf Higris in his bunk, laying on his back and reading a book that was covered in unintelligible symbols. He looked up when she approached, but before he or the eight other cultists could move she wrenched him out of bed with her magic and slammed him against the wall. A flickering green barrier shielded her from the other cultists.

"I do not appreciate being kept in the dark. You will tell me what the plan is with C'Thun."

"Or what?" he asked coldly, a sly grin on his ugly mug.

She paused, then narrowed her eyes and grinned wickedly. With one hand sustaining a stream of magic that pushed him into the wall, she held up her other hand and forced violet power to crackle along it. "Have you ever drowned? What if I made it so you never stopped drowning?" She could probably do it too. She'd just need a few hours to locate the parts of the brain that handled breathing, and from there the parts that handled what to do when the person _wasn't_ breathing...

To her eternal satisfaction, the elf's eyes widened ever so slightly. "The Old Ones and their servants are the only ones capable of such punishments, and you are but a pale shadow of them. You're bluffing."

"Wrong." She reached into his mind and severed his vocal cord tethers, then jabbed at the pain center of his brain. He went limp in her spell and she let go, stepping back to let him fall down as he tried in vain to scream. The other cultists protested and tried to get up, but Sara glanced their way and cowed them. "Maybe you need a reminder," she told the elf. "I wield the power of the masters. I control life and death like a lever. You will tell me what you intend with C'Thun."

She gave him back his voice and, when he recovered, he glared up at her. "The plan," he wheezed. " - is first and foremost to find a way to revive the Great One. Failing that, we would take samples of his greatness to the other Old Ones, possibly reviving them. If not, then we'll take pieces from each of them and find our way to the last of the Masters."

Sara nodded. "Clever plan. I doubt you'll be able to revive any of them, they've been dead too long even for me." Now she knew that she'd have to check them for any apocalyptic contraband when they were through with Ahn'Qiraj. "Also relies on you even being able to find the fifth Old God, especially before anyone else does." She rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Good luck with that. If you want this plan of yours to work, you'd better get it together." Sara released him and turned around to storm out of the room. Leira had to be informed at once. Fardol too.

A wave rocked the boat, sending Sara off her feet and into the wall. She held out her hands and steadied herself, foul mood cured instantly.

... maybe after a few more hours of watching the ocean.


	11. Chapter 10: Enemies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

She was barely awake when land came into sight.

The twinkling stars were quiet in the light of the full moons, and the sky was remarkably clear. All around the boat, the ocean sloshed like ink as it lapped at their vessel. It was on deck, late at night, that Sara saw land.

The ship's crew was remarkably calm about the event, but Sara could only see the approaching land with trepidation. After all, it meant that the easiest part of the journey was over and now they had a long, _long_ flight across Kalimdor ahead of them. It was a shame that this was the fastest way. Stormwind had no boats to Ratchet in the Barrens, and the ruins of Theramore were still wreathed in arcane radiation.

So it was a cross-continent trip that loomed ahead of her. At the very least it would all be on the back of flying mounts, so aside from her legs falling asleep the trip wouldn't be so unbearable. Aside from lasting an entire week with her dangling in the air, but maybe it'd be interesting. Certainly it would be an _experience._

She let a jaw-cracking yawn as they got closer. As they did, more and more details of the island came into sight. The most striking feature was the growth upon the island. It was the tree stump of Teldrassil, so much taller than anything she'd ever seen in her entire life. From so far away it wasn't much more than a silhouette, but even then she could make off the branches hanging off the tree like little tentacles.

She'd found a bench to sit on, and leaned her head back to rest on the wall as she watched the oceans go by in a haze. Dimly she knew she should be trying to wake up; it'd do no good to take off in the air while half asleep. It was only when, as they got close enough to make out Rut'theran Village, that she realized that they needed to _unpack_ and she got moving.

Springing up from where she sat, Sara thundered below deck and slammed open the door where her non-cultist companions rested, sleeping soundly.

The smash of the door startled some of them into waking up, but then Sara started to yell. "Alright, everyone wake up, now!" Startled shouts and complaints filled the air. "Rut'theran Village is maybe half an hour away! Everyone up! Go to the bathroom if you have to, get your belongings together. Dianna, Frazzle, start organizing our equipment. Bring it on deck and we'll distribute it like we discussed. Eat your breakfast on your own time!"

They were still getting up, so Sara stormed to her bunk and pulled out the knapsack containing her belongings. Nothing much. All she had was a diary, some pencils, sandwiches, and clean clothes. Her pack was quite large though, so she had a lot of space left over. She slung it on her back and went back to the doorway. Once there she looked over her shoulders and took a deep breath. " _I said now!_ " she barked.

Before she could start helping out, she had one quick stop to make. She barged uninvited into the Twilight's Hammer's room and shocked them each with some pain – except for Leira, who she simply woke up. "Everyone up! Get your asses over there and help out everyone else. Don't even think about tampering with this equipment. Remember, my success is just as important for you." Sadly Sara couldn't do anything if they _did_ decide to tamper, so she just had to hope her little demonstration on their leader made them fear her enough.

She left them behind and went back. In the hallway there was already a line of mages and warlocks in their sleeping clothes blearily stumbling up the stairs. Sara went into the door and towards the back. Just like she had instructed, the warlock Dianna and the gnomish mage Frazzle were busy unpacking the equipment from the first of the two boxes.

"I'll help," she said. She slung her pack off and opened it, revealing all the space still inside.

Dianna nodded, still blinking the sleep from her eyes. "Thanks." She reached in and handed a small wooden box to her that could easily fit in her hand. "This one has the detection wand."

"Mmhmm," she said, putting it away with her belongings.

The gnome handed her another box, about twice the size of the other. "This is the recorder to go with the wand," he said.

They continued unpacking until Sara's bag was full. She closed it and slung it over her shoulders, stumbling for a moment under the weight. She took a deep breath and stood, moving out. "Get the rest of the gear handed out, we'll be coming up on land any minute now."

She headed out of the room and climbed the stairs with some amount of difficulty. On deck her shouting at her underlings had whipped them into shape, and they were busy going down to get their own equipment, cramming in an early breakfast, and generally preparing as fast as they could. There were also the other occupants of the ship lazing about, and Fardol Brighthammer rested patiently on a bench, as hard to look at as ever. Ahead of them, Teldrassil loomed higher than she felt anything had a right to grow, and nestled in between two city-sized roots was a sleepy little town of purples and blues, jutting out to sea by way of a pier.

It was another ten minutes before they would arrive. Five minutes before that, her two dozen followers had all come on deck, all their equipment with them.

"Alright!" she shouted, standing in front of them. "Rut'theran has a reputation as a fairly friendly place, nice locals, good food. We're not staying one minute for any of that! Once we get off this boat we're making a beeline for the hippogriff master. Everyone here know the rules for air travel?" Nodding heads filled her sight. "Good, then I won't need to repeat them. Our first stop will be in Auberdine, you'll all get a chance to eat and rest once you're there. If anyone has not yet used the restroom on board, go now! You won't get a chance to in flight." Sadly she wasn't able to get a good schedule for a boat to Auberdine from Rut'theran, so flight would have to do.

A handful of the people with her went downstairs, leaving her to turn her back to everyone else and gaze at the approaching village with baited breath. Rut'theran village bloomed open as they approached, and even from the boat Sara could see the resident night elves going about their daily lives.

Sitting at tables and talking, walking in and out of stores and inns, walking around hand in hand. Night elven architecture itself was nothing to scoff at. She'd seen pictures, but it was something else entirely to see a house literally carved into a tree, or perhaps the tree had purposefully been grown that way. All the dark purple was easy on the eyes too.

Before too much longer the boat pulled in to harbor and came to a complete stop. Sara led the twenty five of them off the boat – Fardol followed – and into Rut'theran. Their group got a few looks, but Sara didn't care. She marched to the right, over a small wooden bridge that ended in what she almost mistook for a birdhouse at first glance, but there were no walls and the birds were half equine.

She'd seen hippogriffs in pictures, but standing before one was another experience entirely. The front half of its body was covered in deep blue feathers the size of her arm, and its head sported glowing eyes and a sharp, pointed beak. Proud antlers sprouted from its head, decorated with little bead. Underneath its wings Sara could see a line of red feathers standing out vividly against the blue, and towards the end the feathers revealed a splotchy teal hide, with a fibrous tail extending out over two solid hooves. The hippogriff's talons played idly with the hay.

The hippogriff master was a tall woman. Instead of the powerful violet skin most night elves had hers was on the blue side, and she had the tattoo of a leaf sprawled across her forehead. All around her were beds filled to the brim with straw, a few of which even had hippogriffs resting in them.

The night elf was already looking her way as they approached. As Sara sped up to reach her, she noticed the animals all looking right at her, dead silent. "You must me Ms. Smithers and company, yes?" she asked in a Darnassian accent. "I have your rides ready, please step this way." Sara had forwarded the gold to her by way of mail earlier, and not just to her but to all the flight masters. She had, naturally, wanted their spots reserved ahead of time.

"Yes, tha – "

_Whoosh!_ Sara's eyes snapped to the right as a brilliant, snow white armored gryphon took off into the horizon, Fardol upon it as he flew to the mainland.

She turned back to the elf, rolling her eyes at the distraction. " _Thank_ you."

"If you'll step this way," the flight master offered, leading Sara to one of the saddled hippogriffs. The bird-horse looked her way and squawked, the feathers on its face bristling for a moment. "Easy boy, easy. Step around there, one foot in there, yes." Sara did as she said, getting on top of the hippogriff. It cawed angrily, flaring and flapping its wings so hard it nearly knocked her off. Her heart caught in her throat for a moment, but she grabbed the reins and kept her balance.

The flight master barked a few harsh words in Darnassian, then looked apologetically at her. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's gotten into him," she said as she strapped Sara in.

Her thoughts went to the foul, potent magic coursing through her veins, and she felt she had an idea. "It's fine, I'm sure he'll get over it soon enough." She looked at everyone else. "I'll be waiting at the other end. I'll come to you."

The night elf gave a sharp command that caused the hippogriff to caw and flap its wings wildly. It rose into the air, and Sara's stomach dropped out of her body.

"Alright," she breathed to herself as the flying creature veered away from Rut'theran. "Okay, this isn't so – _OH HOLY - !_ " All at once the hippogriff shot forward like an arrow, and suddenly they'd left Teldrassil and were over the open ocean. Sara leaned forward and hid her head behind the mount's to keep the wind from peeling her face off, breathing heavily. It squawked at her angrily, but made no motion to throw her off so she counted it as a success.

After a few minutes of hanging on for her life, Sara remembered the rules she herself had taught the rest of her group about riding in the air. She adjusted her pack, then her stance, and got into the proper riding form to reduce air drag.

Once she got herself stabilized on the nervous bird, she took a deep breath and looked around.

The light of the Blue Child and White Lady shone down upon her, and from her altitude they reflected on the ocean beautifully. She allowed herself to relax and take in the sights as Teldrassil faded into the distance behind her. The rushing wind, while as fierce as ever, became calming background noise and since she was using the hippogriff as a wind shield, it wasn't painful in the least. Beneath her, the waves of the ocean blurred together as she sped by, creating incomprehensible patterns.

As they flew, the sun started to come up. The black sky started to gain color and one by one the stars winked out. The Blue Child sunk beneath the horizon, and the White Lady wasn't far behind. As the sun started to rise, the ocean seemed to catch fire and Sara wondered if there was a spell that _could_ actually do that. A spell to set fire to the ocean and have the blaze spread as if it were oil. She wondered how long it would take the oceans to burn away, and how Azeroth would react to losing all its water. The thought of being far off the planet, watching it blazing red, brought a smile to her face.

Hours passed as the sun began to climb into the sky, casting its rays upon the ocean. Ragged tufts of cloud materialized in the sky, and eventually Sara saw Kalimdor's mainland on the horizon.

As they drew closer, Sara got her first ever look at Darkshore and the rebuilt town of Auberdine. The shoreline faintly resembled a cracked egg with the way water flowed inland through powerful currents. Heavy mist hugged the gray grasses, and the advent of autumn was unnoticed by the army of dark pines. Auberdine was built over the sprawling rivers, and the brilliant colors that were usually associated with night elf architecture seemed oppressed by the fog of Darkshore.

As she grew closer, the hippogriff she rode on dipped down, causing Sara's hair to float for a moment. Her body tingled as they descended under the increasingly cloudy sky, closer and closer to Auberdine's own hippogriff master, who was housed in a structure identical to Rut'theran's.

The hippogriff slowed down as they grew closer, and the gale winds whipping around her faded into a strong breeze. Within minutes they were there, and the hippogriff slowly lowered itself into a bed of straw.

The night elf tending to them walked over to her and helped her off. "Welcome to Auberdine," he said. "I trust the flight was alright?"

Sara stumbled once she got off, legs wobbling. "Yeah, yeah. It was great." She reached her hands up and groaned, stretching higher until she felt her spine pop. "I don't think he likes me though," she joked, motioning to the hippogriff – still staring at her – with her head.

"Hmm, odd. Trialin here usually loves meeting new people," he mused. "Anyway, I hope you enjoy your stay in Auberdine."

She gave him a curt nodded and started down into the main town. She found a bench and collapsed onto it, her legs still not working properly after the hours of flying. Maybe sitting would help. After another few minutes, Sara spotted a dot on the horizon fast approaching. As it grew closer it was apparent it was the next hippogriff. She didn't see who got off right away, but her question was answered when Maria walked down the ramp towards her.

Sara stood and waved to catch her attention, and Maria made a beeline for her. Sara spoke before the warlock had a chance. "Okay, here's how it's going to go. I am going to go get breakfast, you sit here on the bench and wait for the next person to arrive. Once they have, tell them to wait for the next and you get breakfast. We're meeting up here and leaving at high noon."

She saluted. "You got it, boss!" she said with a giggle.

Sara rolled her eyes, but passed by her and let Maria take the bench. Fardol was nowhere to be found, which was fine. He was so hard to be around. There had to be some place she could get a decent meal in Auberdine.

She passed by the denizens of the village, looking around. She passed by the blacksmithy, and then the stable. After a few minutes of wandering she found the inn, just a stone's throw away from her bench. When she found it, she ground her teeth against each other. She'd gone the wrong way.

The inn was a wide and open building with three entrances at ninety degrees angle to each other. All of the tables were snug against the walls, with patrons drinking and eating at them while their chatter made a soothing background noise. An equal distance from all three entrances was a bar, with a night elf man behind it pouring a drink for a customer, chatting animatedly.

When Sara took a seat he looked her way and slid over to her. "Hello, welcome to Auberdine. Passing through I assume?"

She nodded, looking over the menu hanging on the wall behind him. "Coffee, a halibut, and two slices of banana bread please."

He nodded. "How would you like your coffee?"

"Sugar and cream please."

"Alright, that'll be forty five silver and sixty copper ma'am." She slung off her pack and rummaged through it, pulling out fifty silver and handing it to him. He took it and, humming as he did, gave her back her change and went to prepare her breakfast. She didn't have anything better to do, so she stared at him like a hawk as he did. He knelt to get the food from hidden drawers beneath the table, manipulated similarly hidden machinery, and within minutes Sara had her breakfast.

"Thank you," she grunted before taking a bite of her bread. Her steaming coffee was the color of dry mud, just the way she liked it. Nice and sweet too, the bitter flavor barely noticeable.

The food was alright. The fish tasted weird, but she'd never had halibut before so she had no way of knowing if it was normal for the creature. Maria eventually found her way in, as did a mage a few minutes later, but before they could make small talk with her she finished up and left the inn to wander the streets of Auberdine. She went to a small store and purchased some water and a few snacks for the upcoming trip, and left just as quickly.

As she walked under the gray skies, Sara pondered the upcoming parts of their journey. The next flight would take a _long_ time, bringing them all the way to Astranaar in Ashenvale. Once there they'd have to start taking measurements. They'd already calibrated the equipment, but given the supposed size of Yogg-Saron, it was worth seeing how far even trace amounts of C'Thun's magic extended from Silithus.

She rounded a corner and saw a woman standing in the middle of the street. The elf was dressed in a long robe patterned like spring branches, with a few baskets beside her. The elf noticed her as well, and her green eyes sparkled as Sara approached. "Hello there!" she said happily. "Spare any donations for the war?"

Sara stopped in her tracks and raised an eyebrow. "What war?" she asked, worried.

"You mean you haven't heard?" the night elf asked, raising a green eyebrow.

"I've been on a boat for the past month. Heard what?" Sara growled.

The elf frowned, suddenly grim. "I suppose that would do it. War has broken out all throughout the Eastern Kingdoms. The Burning Legion has returned."

Sara's heart skipped a beat, and all of a sudden her skin bristled with goosebumps. Why had it gotten so… so cold all of a sudden?

"What?" she whispered. "T-The Legion? When? How?!"

"A few weeks ago, they invaded Silvermoon and the Blasted Lands and have been on the move since," the night elf said. "That's why I'm here, collecting donations. We need a great many things for the war effort. Bandages, food, herbs, metals, to name a few. So, do you have anything to spare to stop the Burning Legion?"

Sara shook her head. "I'm afraid not. We're on an expedition to Silithus, about two dozen of us. Sorry, but we don't have much to spare."

The kaldorei's face fell, but she just nodded. "I understand. Just be safe, you hear? There's no telling when they'll set their sights on Kalimdor."

"Yeah," Sara breathed weakly. "Stay safe," she muttered more to herself than the elf as she continued on. She sought out the closest bench and let her rapidly weakening legs collapse her onto it.

"Shit, shit shit!" she whispered to herself. The Burning Legion. In the Eastern Kingdoms. Close to Stormwind. Close to Sara. Close to her parents. As much as she wanted to tell herself that everything would be fine, that the armies of the Alliance would hold them off and the Legion would be defeated as it had been thrice before, she couldn't convince herself. After all the Legion only needed to win once, right?

And what if it was a pyrrhic victory? What if they destroyed Elwynn Forest before being repelled? She had to let her parents know! But how?

No. She was in too deep to help with the Legion, and she wasn't about to risk life and limb to help ensure the safety of her life and limb. Unless she got drafted in by the Battlemage Declaration, she was more than happy to let the Kingslayers handle it, like they had so many things in the past.

Despite her reassurances, Sara shivered. The Burning Legion. Damn it all.

She needed to keep moving, keep her mind off it. So she stood from the bench and wandered aimlessly around Auberdine, taking in the depressed scenery in the time she had. But no matter how hard Sara tried, the demonic invasion that was apparently taking place half the world away stayed at the forefront of her mind. What would she do if they attacked her? She had total confidence in her abilities to handle any given demon. Imps? Pathetic. Succubi? Easy. Doomguards? Ha. Maybe even a Pit Lord if she got the drop on it, she had a tremendous amount of power and really, did she need anything else?

Her real worry was what would happen if a demon ambushed her instead of the other way around. There was nothing she could do about that…

Eventually, the time to depart for Astranaar began to approach. Sara found the gaggle of her people waiting outside the ramp that lead to the hippogriff master. She walked in front of them and raised a hand at the ground.

"Alright!" she shouted, blasting the ground with a shadow bolt. It splashed purple and green on the ground, yellowing the grass. At the same time, she wove another link with Leira so neither of them would be bored out of their minds for the trip. "I hope you've all had a good time, and stocked up on water!" There were confirming nods. "Good. I also hope you've enjoyed ground, because you're not walking on it for a whole day! Next stop is Astranaar in Ashenvale. When we get there we'll be taking readings on the local ambient magic. There's already been a baseline established what it's like there, so if our readings line up with them we'll know everything's properly calibrated."

She turned her back to them and started marching to the hippogriff master. "You all already know the procedure, I won't hold your hands through it."

Just a few minutes later, Sara rode on the back of another hippogriff, Darkshore winding past beneath her. So high in the air, the grey clouds choking the sky seemed almost close enough to touch, but of course Sara wasn't even close. The forest below passed by, broken here and there by ancient ruins that nature had still yet to reclaim.

Sara yawned. It was excruciatingly boring so high up, so she reached through the telepathic link and sent Leira a quiet, _'Hey.'_

A pause. _'Hey yourself. Did you hear about – '_

_'The Legion? Yeah. What are we going to do?'_

_'I know that as soon as we're done here, I'm heading back to Ironforge. We're going to kick some demon ass!'_

A pang of worry shot through her stomach. _'Are you sure? I mean, it sounds pretty dangerous. It's the Burning Legion, after all.'_

_'Sara I appreciate the concern, but this is something I'm actually pretty good at. I'll be fine. Though I guess if you want to be sure you could always come along with your life and death magic…'_

Despite knowing Leira couldn't see her, Sara forced a pout. _'I knew it, you just like me for my magic! You only want me around as your resurrection slave.'_

_'I'd punch you right now if I could.'_

Sara had to laugh. _'But no, in all honesty I'll probably end up being, ugh, drafted by the whole battlemage nonsense. I was hoping to get my research done simply, but nooo!'_ Ugh. She was going to have to suspend her project for months, maybe years depending on how long the Legion invasion lasted.

_'I've been meaning to talk to you about that. This seems pretty important to you. Does it have anything to do with your magic, Sara?'_ Leira asked, sounding concerned.

Sara froze. She didn't want to tell her. How could she? Leira was a proud warrior, how could she explain it? She wielded the same power the minions of the Old Gods did. _'I… I don't really… Leira it's not something easy to… I'm – '_

_'Hey, okay. Relax. If it's really that hard to say, I'm not going to force you. Relax Sara, just enjoy the flight!'_

_'Right.'_ It was some flight, too. As the sun cycled through the sky behind the cloud cover, and as the wind whipped around Sara as she flew, slowly but surely she could see an approaching mountain range.

"Felwood," she whispered with a grimace. Surely the hippogriff wouldn't fly… _over_ Felwood, would it?

Fortunately, it seemed it wouldn't. The hippogriff veered sharply to the south, sustaining its mad pace to let the mountains trail past to Sara's left. The woods began to open up as Sara flew further and further south, and the dense clouds above her began to tatter and tear, revealing the sky beyond.

By that point, it was the middle of the night and Sara had gotten thirsty. Her pack had drinks in it, but getting to them while traveling so fast was… tricky. Nevertheless she was strapped in securely, so with some minor yet nerve-wracking she got a flask of water. She drained it, watching the land below, then ate the few snacks she had. Here and there the light of the moon shone through the clouds, casting dots of light and dark upon the land.

Through the dark flight, Darkshore soon transitioned smoothly into Ashenvale. Far below her feet, the dark pines were replaced by brilliant oaks of unworldly color. There were green trees as normal, but also purple trees, blue trees, glowing trees! They blended together like a mural beneath her. She'd never seen anything like it, and she couldn't wait to land so she could get a closer look.

The clouds parted as they flew deeper into Ashenvale, swerving to the east. A few more hours passed in monotone. There was nothing to do. Aside from a dull flicker of noise in her mind that she assumed as Leira dreaming, there was no sound beyond the white noise of rushing air.

Sara's eyelids burned and there was a nauseous churning in her gut, but she couldn't afford to sleep quite yet. Especially not hundreds of yards in the air. But her back was pretty sore from sitting upright for so long and her legs would surely never be the same again, so she could probably lean over onto the hippogriff's sea-green feathers. She could rest her head on the downy pillow for just a few minutes, and maybe rest her eyes too. She couldn't sleep though, because if she did –

Sara jolted, feeling as if she was falling. Then she realized she actually was falling and screamed in panic.

Then she realized she wasn't falling, the hippogriff was _descending_ into Astranaar, and she swallowed her heart back down her throat.

Still in the process of waking up and cursing herself for falling asleep in the first place, Sara experienced her landing in a daze. She was vaguely aware of a night elf undoing the straps keeping her on the hippogriff, of her trying to stand and promptly failing, and of stumbling over to a bench and collapsing into it, blinking the sun out of her eyes.

"Uhh," she groaned, letting her eyes close again. She dozed idly for a few minutes before a little shake of the bench alerted her to the fact that someone else had arrived. She cracked open an eye and glanced at the person who'd joined her.

It was a gnomish man, with blue hair, wearing his mage robes despite her recommending not to. "Alrinn Fiddlegear, yes?" she asked, sitting up with a groan.

He yawned. "Yep."

"Alright. Once everyone else is gathered, we'll go to the city park and get our calibrations. Should take about an hour. Until then get some rest if you need it, breakfast definitely." She shook her head. "Hold on, _after_ the next person arrives and you tell them, same deal as before."

He saluted with a wry grin. "You got it, boss! We'll meet up in the town square!"

Sara took a moment to disable the link to Leira, then stood and began to walk around, see the sights. She got a few glances from the night elves, so she guessed they didn't get _too_ many humans around. There wasn't much that happened; she found the inn, downed a quick breakfast and headed back out to watch the colored trees sway hypnotically in the wind.

Eventually, she returned to the gathering of her people and waited for the stragglers to return from their own meals. Once they'd all gathered, she led them to the town square and had them all begin unpacking the equipment.

"Alex, give me the detection wand. Thank you. Alrinn, take Higris…" She forgot the next person's name. "… him, him, and her. Head over there with the scrubber and arcanometer, get a reading on the leylines. Fardol, please stay far away. Right there's good." She pointed at the next group of people and assigned them their own instructions, had someone hand her a notepad and pencil, and finished dividing up their work. She made extra certain not to have groups with only the Twilight's Hammer in it, and as a precaution: "You all know what to do. If you see someone screwing up help them get it right," she said. "Don't tiptoe around calling people out," she said with a glare at Higris. She quickly whispered into his mind, _'Don't screw this up.'_ She giggled a bit when he gulped nervously.

They separated, and Sara took the detection wand in hand. The detection wand was a work of art. It was a rod of pure arcanite, with a wide cone of clear crystals on the end. Intricate runes were woven all along its length. Normally, magical signatures were impossible to just 'acquire'. Someone had to force mana into a detection mechanism, and in the process their magical signature would be taken. The same, obviously, couldn't be done for a _location._ The detection wand was the answer.

Once activated, it would get a reading of the surrounding mana on its own, without any input. There would also be nobody affecting the magic with their biology, so the rules of reading a person's signature were vastly different than reading a region's signature. For one thing, there were five variables instead of four. It was also incredibly stable, and even with her faceless magic Sara could ingest the wand and it still wouldn't pick up a mote of magic from her while doing its readings.

It was also incredibly expensive and portals played merry hell with it.

A little spark of her shadow magic got it running, and slowly the clear crystals filled up with scintillating arcane magic taken from Astranaar. She flipped it over and began reading the tiny readout runes, writing down the raw data on her notepad.

"Fifty-seven point two, eight point three, negative fifty point oh, five point five, and fifteen point eight," she muttered, writing down the last of the numbers. Another flash started the draining procedure, emptying out the detection wand's crystals so it would be ready for another use.

Sara's own part was done, so she spent the better part of the next hour walking around helping the mages and warlocks in training operate the delicate magical devices, making sure they didn't blow anything up, gathering as much data as they could. Nether density, ley line friction, et cetera. Analyzing all the numbers could wait until she returned to Stormwind. For now, it was experiment time.

* * *

Fardol Brighthammer

Fardol Brighthammer wasn't an idiot.

You didn't get into Paradox if you were. You had to be smart, strong, you had to be able to work in a team, you had to be able to adapt to situations rapidly.

Ever since he'd laid eyes on Sara he knew something was horribly wrong with the young lass. There was just something not right with her brown eyes, no matter how friendly and cooperative she'd behaved. Fardol had seen his fair share of psychopaths and he knew one when he saw one, with the cocksure way she carried herself, so confident in her ability to single handedly smack down a dozen members of the Twilight's Hammer.

He could only feel sorrow for Leira for having been wrapped around Sara's finger.

And then she'd used her magic on him. _Hoo_ boy! Being part of a guild that trailed right behind the Kingslayers had gotten him knocked around with more shadow magic than he cared to admit. That spell she'd used on him was like getting ice water dumped on him, ice water filled with crawling maggots. The Light practically flew to his aid, held at bay by naught but his will.

Garden variety antisocial disorders didn't explain that.

It wasn't typical shadow magic. He knew the difference. Whatever was wrong with that young woman, it was horrific. Leira must not've been on the path of the Light, if the draenei didn't notice. Or maybe she didn't care, having grown accustomed. How long had those two been friends?

Sara was aiding – in a ways – the Twilight's Hammer. Her shadow magic was so unnaturally cold. She refused to glance at him and the Light kept warning him about where she was. Currently, she spoke with a group of humans about one of their magical doohickeys, far away from him.

He needed to get to Leira and speak with her. More importantly, he needed to speak with the mages and warlocks with Sara, warn them about the Hammer since Ms. Smithers _clearly_ wasn't doing so. If she wasn't going to handle the situation then he would.

Fardol made his way to a bench and sat, humming a tune his Ma had sung to him when he was a kiddo. He was almost completely inconspicuous. The only thing notable about him was his enchanted netherweave bag carrying his armor deep within its cloth.

There _was_ of course the Burning Legion invasion. But he knew when to follow his gut, and his gut insisted that there was something _much_ more than just an Archmage thesis going on here. He had to stick around and perform reconnaissance on Sara, then report back to his guild. Warn Leira too. If she was spying on the Twilight's Hammer then she was firmly under 'enemy of my enemy' rules – as was Sara, for the time being at least.

At the moment he was busy trying to place where he'd felt her brand of shadow magic before. It certainly wasn't fel magic. There were a few possibilities and one of them, given where they were going, was unsettlingly likely. He didn't want to even consider that likelihood, but damn it all he had to. It was his duty.

If Sara somehow wielded Old God magic, then it would certainly explain a lot. Her mannerisms, the hidden disdain for everyone around her would fool all but the most trained eyes. Though it certainly didn't explain why she was at odds with the Twilight's Hammer. Perhaps she held no loyalty to the Old Gods, merely had their magic. That didn't make sense either. The foul power of the Old Gods didn't leave mortals disobedient to their cause.

Maybe she hadn't wielded it _that_ long yet. Fardol didn't know. There was so much he didn't know, but he could figure out. He just had to needle Sara and Leira a little under the guise of concern. It wouldn't even be that hard, since he _was_ concerned.

If Sara wanted to manipulate everyone around her, then perhaps it was time for her to have a taste of her own medicine.


	12. Chapter 11: City of Numberless Sins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Fardol Brighthammer

"Hey there lass, Maria was it, can I talk with ya?"

The warlock turned from her spellbook and looked down at him. "Hmm? Oh yeah, Fardol right? Watcha need?"

"I need to talk to ya in private. It's pretty darn important." He gestured outside of the inn with his head, and she nodded. Clapping the book shut, Maria followed after him to the outside of Feathermoon Stronghold. To one side, the ocean sprayed them with salty air, and to the other side the lush jungles of Feralas opened up, the sound of hooting mammals and buzzing insects forming a writhing background noise. Despite how late it was in the year, Fardol had to constantly wipe the sweat from his brow. He led Maria a safe distance from the inn so they could talk without the Twilight's Hammer knowing.

They had come to Feralas in their journey to rest up, and Sara had decided on a longer break than usual. Once the magical readings for the area had been taken, they'd all been given a few hours to themselves. To Fardol's immense relief, the cult had taken the opportunity to seclude themselves and start praying to the Old Gods in secret.

On the one hand, it meant he _still_ hadn't been able to talk to Leira about Sara's power. On the other hand, it meant he could talk to everybody else.

They stopped near the outskirts of Feathermoon Stronghold. The Sentinels watching the entrance gave them both one look each, but beyond that didn't say a word. Once there Maria turned to him. "So what's up?" she asked casually.

"Alright now, there's quite a few things about this expedition ya probably need to learn about so I'm gonna explain it now. When Sara was preparing to come here, she was attacked by the Twilight's Hammer."

Maria's gasped and her left hand flew up to cover her mouth. "That's horrible!"

_Maybe._ He nodded. "Aye it is, but it gets worse. The Hammer had wanted to threaten her into bringing them along. I think you can understand why they'd want ta get in close with C'Thun's body, ya know? Sara though, from what she says, turned the tables on them, and got them to pay her quite a bit of gold for her expedition in exchange for bringin' them along."

Fardol waited for the implication to sink in to Maria's mind. When it did, she gasped. "You don't mean to say that..." she breathed, trailing off.

He nodded grimly. "Aye, I do. Twelve of the people following with us are in the Hammer. The only exception is that the draenei with them is part of another guild, spying on 'em."

"Really? What guild is she part of?" Maria narrowed her eyes. "And how do I know you're not lying?"

He grimaced. "As to the first, I do not know I'm afraid. And I get that you're worried but come on miss." He batted his eyelashes. "Would I lie to you?" She stared at him, and he laughed. "Oh, I'm just pullin' yer leg. Here." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his fist sized insignia, of an open eye with whited out pupils. "This here's my insignia, proud member o' Paradox right here."

"Oh shit. Paradox?" The blood drained from her face. "So... shit! The Hammer? And Sara's - holy shit! I can't believe she'd do something so stupid!"

"Hang on, ya know Sara?"

"We grew up in the same town together, she's the reason I'm a warlock in the first place," she said with a little flicker of dripping darkness along her left hand. "So what about the Hammer? What are we going to do?"

"At the moment Sara needs them to carry the equipment, but she's shown not a lick of interest in actually keeping them from the Old God's corpse. She's all talk when it comes to that, so I'm takin' the initiative. The plan is, once we're inside Ahn'Qiraj, we're gonna ambush them. I have no problem doin' most of the heavy lifting when it comes to that, but I could use your help in setting them on fire once we need to."

Maria looked like she was going to be sick. "Wait wait wait, you're asking me to... to kill them?"

_Damn it,_ he swore internally. It was hard to remember that most people in the magical sciences didn't do much battling, especially the greener ones. Living alongside the casters in his own guild had made him forget that most warlocks and mages weren't that keen on taking lives these days. "I'm not askin' ya to do anything that makes ya uncomfortable. All I need to know is if you'll be willin' to at least help me. Shoot a few shadow bolts to distract them and the likes. I don't put much stock in Sara's abilities despite how confident she is so - "

"Sorry to interrupt," she said with a light cringe. "But Sara's actually pretty strong, she's not bluffing. Like, I remember when we were like eight years old or something and in school, she brought a frog back from the dead."

"That's new," he whispered to himself. "She can make undead?" he asked her.

Maria shook her head vigorously. "Oh um, no. I mean she actually brought the frog back to life. Ribbits and all, I almost threw up when she did."

"That's... certainly something. Though it's not immediately important. I've already spoken ta everyone else comin' with us about the Hammer, so it won't just be the two of us against eleven of them. All you need ta do is wait for my signal, that sound alright?"

Maria nodded, though the way she bit her lip said a lot about how comfortable she was with the idea of fighting. "Well I guess - I mean I can't just let - it's the Hammer, right? Holy shit, I can't believe I'm really going to - "

"Hey now miss, relax. For now let's just head on back and pretend nothin's wrong. I asked you about some magical doppelgingers and you tried to explain it ta me, sound good?"

"Yeah," she said with a gulp. "S-Sounds good. Just act natural."

He turned away from Maria and they went their separate ways. He couldn't imagine what must've been going through Maria's head, poor thing, but at least now he had everyone on his side. Didn't much like swinging around his authority as a member of Paradox, but it needed to be done. Though there was something Maria said that really unnerved him.

Sara could resurrect the dead.

On one hand, that was great news for them. If she could bring back frogs when she was just a wee girl, then surely if any of them were fatally wounded she could just revive them good as new. It was _quite_ the safety net. On the other hand, what did that mean for her powers?

Miss Smithers almost certainly had the magic of the Old Gods. And if Maria was to be believed in that she could manipulate death itself, then there was only one known Old God whose power fell into that domain...

Fardol shivered. Just what had he gotten himself into?

At length, the time came to depart from Feralas for Silithus, and he couldn't dispel the pit in his stomach as they lined up next to the hippogriff master. That at least went without incident. One by one - Sara going first, as always - they took a hippogriff and flew off to the south, streaking out of sight within minutes. After her went the high elf Higris, grinning all the way, followed by the rest of the party until Fardol was the only one remaining.

He approached the kaldorei woman and, after some pleasant small talk, he was situated on the hippogriff and off into the air. He'd decided to let his mount rest a bit, so public transportation it was. Within minutes he was high in the sky, looking around at the ocean and the verdant forests. Fardol Brighthammer decided to look behind him at the retreating Feathermoon Stronghold... and gasped.

Tiny meteors crashed into it, flickering with fel flame as they streaked through the clear sky. One broke through the roof of the inn, sending stone and splinters and dust flying out in a cloud. He couldn't make out many details, but he thought he could see the meteors' remains assembling themselves into towering infernals, as well as other demonic soldiers charging from the narrow path that led into Feralas. No doubt the Sentinels would fight them off, they were the Sentinels after all, but it could mean only one thing.

The Legion had arrived in Kalimdor.

* * *

Sara

The mountains towered beneath her, and the heavy rain clouds passed behind her. Had she not used her shadowy barrier, they would've made the trip simply miserable. Now though, she left them behind as her hippogriff descended into the rain shadow of the mountains, into Silithus.

Like many things, Sara had seen the pictures but seeing it for herself was a totally different beast.

Never in her life could she have imagined the existence of so much... _sand!_ It glittered under the sun, white as snow with half the glare, and sandy rocks poked through the veritable ocean of sand like islands at sea. Far to her left Sara saw a vast indentation in the ground bristling with purple and organic colors, with swarms of black moving around within the writhing ground. She knew from her maps that she was staring at Hive'Ashi, one of the few remaining silithid hives on Azeroth. She wondered what the primitive silithid were like up close, how easily she'd be able to twist their thoughts and puppeteer their bodies.

As she flew over the sand and Hive'Ashi drifted past her, the air began to dry and she soon found herself licking her lips unconsciously. Luckily, despite the fact that the southern hemisphere was approaching summer, Silithus was far enough south and the sands were bright enough that it wasn't much warmer than Stormwind. The only gripe Sara had was that the air was so dry that it felt like her throat was festering. A few twisting whirlwinds roared far beneath her, but she was too high up for their power to reach her.

Far ahead of her, past Hive'Ashi, was Cenarion Hold. It stood tall and proud upon the mound of stones it had been built upon. She couldn't make out details currently, having just entered Silithus, but even from so far away she could recognize the watchtower, over twice as high as the rest of the Hold, next to where her hippogriff would land.

As she grew closer, more and more structures came into view. There was another pillar past the dusty architecture of Cenarion Hold, but it had very clearly seen better days. Even with the death of C'Thun and the shattering of the Qiraji armies, the Swarming Pillar had never been fully reconstructed. Though the organic structures growing around it rotted in the sun and the cyclonic swarms of insects around it were absent, it was crumbled and gaping, forgotten. She couldn't see Ahn'Qiraj though.

As the hours passed and the sun slunk towards the mountains, she came closer and closer to Cenarion Hold. The hippogriff slowed, so the whipping arid winds were reduced to a gentle breeze. By then the sun had dipped below the horizon and a chill began to engulf the desert. She flew down past the watchtower and landed with the hippogriff master.

"Greetings," the night elf said. "I trust your trip was smooth?" he asked.

She grunted out a 'yes' as he helped her down. The moment her feet touched the ground a little _shock_ went through her, forcing Sara to catch her breath. It felt as if the ground vibrated, filling her with subtle energy. She pushed the feeling out of her head and jogged down the ramp of Cenarion Hold.

The Silithus stronghold was unbearably desolate compared to the previous locations she had traveled through. The air was dry and disgusting to taste, but to her relief she saw only one or two people on the way to the inn. Unfortunately, they needed to spend the night since they didn't have anything to deal with the bitter cold of night time Silithus. Luckily however, Silithus was nowhere near as large as it appeared on maps thanks to some distortion effects, and once they got their mounts they could get to Ahn'Qiraj by late afternoon provided they left at sunrise.

She didn't wait by the hippogriff master, not this time. Not when they were _so close_ to Ahn'Qiraj and the Old God within.

The inn was similar to the other kaldorei structures they'd been in during the week of traveling and measuring, but far duller in color and with a thin layer of sand scattered across the floor. She went to the innkeeper and got herself dinner, then sat down to eat. Once she was finished with her cornbread and mutton, she paid some more coins for a heated floor. Sara went through the hallways and turned into the room where she would sleep for the night, then brushed the sand off of her raised section of floor.

She didn't go to sleep yet.

Sara made her way out of the inn, passing by the other members of her group with little glances at them. Then she stepped outside into night time Silithus.

Immediately a blast of cold air knocked the breath out of her, and she rubbed her hands together, her skin turning to gooseflesh. It wasn't quite freezing, but _holy - !_

She walked a few paces away, looking around as the desert became encased in cold. Even fewer elves were outside now, the only one she could see was a man working at a forge. The forge itself was painful to look at, given how bright it was compared to absolutely everything else.

Sara thrust her left hand into the air and summoned a pearlescent emerald barrier around herself. It didn't do much to keep the cold out, but hopefully her body heat would start warming up her bubble shortly.

The stars glittered above, the crescent White Lady and gibbous Blue Child standing at odds with each other in the sky. The night elves had little in the way of light pollution, so Sara could easily make out the scattered stars of their galaxy forming a long trail through the heavens. The dry air scraped her throat and its vaguely salty scent filled her nose with each and every fogging breath she took. She went towards the southern edge of the Cenarion Hold and found a fence overlooking the desert. She approached it, adjusting her barrier so she could get close, and rested her arms on it to look out across the vast distances.

The Swarming Pillar loomed off to her left, but if she looked as far as she could and really squinted against the darkness, Sara could make out a few mountains that looked too... _smooth_ to have been natural. Without a doubt that was Ahn'Qiraj, the ancient city of the Qiraji. The Liberality Confederacy had ransacked it over more than three decades ago, but according to the Cenarion Circle some of the insectoids still resided within the city. If they showed themselves, she was going to have to rely on herself and Fardol to fend them off. Maybe Leira too.

Sara stared out at Ahn'Qiraj for a few more minutes, trying to make out more details. Then, when she didn't succeed, she returned back to the inn with the sand sifting about in her shoes. Everyone else was already settling in for the night, so Sara decided she too needed to go to sleep. Early to bed early to rise and all that. She dispelled her shadowy barrier and found her heated section of floor, plopping down on the tan blanket draped over it. She closed her eyes and settled in, ready to tackle the final day of their journey.

But sleep didn't come easily.

Sara tossed and turned, her thoughts like wasps around her head. There was the ever present threat of the Burning Legion and the growing dread that once she returned to Stormwind she'd be pressed into fighting against the demons, an occupation that was distinctly hazardous to her health. Related to that was the worry of how close the Legion was to Greenvale, or to her home in Stormwind. The Blasted Lands weren't that far away, and the Legion had undoubtedly progressed since then.

Then there was her research. The data she'd collected had yet to be analyzed in any real way, but just a cursory glance strongly suggested that there was at least _trace_ amounts of C'Thun's magic floating about as far north as Nigel's Point in Desolace. She knew that since it was trace magic it couldn't harm her or anyone else, but just the idea that the air she breathed had _any_ Old God magic at all was rather unnerving.

And her own magic! Her own faceless magic was still present as ever, growing stronger the more she exercised her magic just like it had been doing for the past twenty years. How much stronger would it get? When she was thirty years old, how much magic would she be able to wield? Forty? Fifty? Not to mention the Twilight's Hammer she was bringing to C'Thun and she _still had no idea how to handle it!_

No, forget bringing the Hammer to C'Thun, she was bringing herself to C'Thun. Who knew how her magic would react to being so close to a damn Old God? Even now it was like a miniature earthquake rolled perpetually through the land and shook her to her bones, but nobody else seemed to notice so it must've been just her. And what about when all the readings were done and she had to return to Stormwind? Nevermind that it would be the first time she ever used a portal, what if she simply wasn't up to the challenge of interpreting the data?

For what seemed like hours Sara tossed and turned. Maybe she caught a few winks, maybe she didn't, but either way the time came for her to blearily drag herself out of bed. Before waking up anyone she slipped out of the inn, alternating between rubbing her arms to warm herself up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

There weren't many night elves about, which was understandable since it was still dark and cold. She walked around for a few minutes, trying to find the stablemaster. Eventually she did, and approached the bearded man with a warm smile plastered to her face. "Hi!" she chirped. "My name's Sara, I'm with the expedition to Ahn'Qiraj." She placed one foot behind the other and looked down awkwardly. "Well, actually I'm leading it. Are you Leoren Mal'derath?" she asked the green haired elf.

He returned her smile. "That I am, young lady." His voice was smooth and so deep she could feel it vibrating in her stomach. "Just bring everyone here and I'll get you all saddled up. My squire will lead you all to the outpost before returning. Just be safe while you're in the city, alright?"

She pulled her foot out from behind the other. "I'll make sure of it, thanks. I'll go wake everyone up!" She turned around on one foot and speed walked away from him. On the horizon, the sky was starting to go from black to blue and the stars had begun to fade away into the darkness. Sara was originally intent on returning to the inn, but a figure out of the corner of her eye drew her attention.

Changing her course, Sara returned to the fence where she'd been just minutes before to find Higris there, staring hungrily at Ahn'Qiraj in the distance.

"We're almost there," he said as she approached. She jumped a little; he knew she was there? Had he heard her approaching?

Sara forced down a yawn. "It's about time too," she said gruffly. "If everything goes to plan, we should be in C'Thun's chamber by tonight."

"And then," he said hungrily, clenching his fists. "The Old One will return, and - "

She stopped him with a _pluck_ at his mind, forcing him to lock up in fear. "Don't get ahead of yourself. I strongly doubt you'll be able to do anything to C'Thun. You'll just have to get whatever you want off its body and go find another Old God to pester."

"We'll see, Sara," he said slyly. "We'll never know unless we try. And then this world will bleed, and we the faithful shall be - "

She cut him off. "Rewarded for our faith, granted immortality, yeah yeah. We've got places to be. Come make yourself useful and help me wake everyone up."

He huffed, but followed her away from the fence and to the inn. Though Sara couldn't help but feel he was glaring at her.

Ten minutes later, everyone was awake, eating snacks and stocking up on water. Fardol changed into his plate armor, which was a dazzling display of golden inscriptions and cooling enchantments and made the already stocky dwarf look like a miniature siege engine. Twenty minutes later, they were on the road to Ahn'Qiraj. Sara set up another telepathy link with Leira, and a young looking kaldorei woman had taken a horse and began to lead them - on roughly a dozen horses, two on each - down the packed path that led to the Qiraji city.

The path was the same dusty color that dominated all of Silithus, made of hardened stone. To add to its coloring, much of the surrounding sand dunes had blown onto it. Sara couldn't imagine how much effort the Cenarion Circle put into maintaining the road. Far, far to her right was another dust devil towering into the air. She rode with one of the warlocks behind her, the man tentatively clutching the reins from behind her as he tried and failed not to be awkward from being so close to her.

The trip was long and they stopped for water often. The sun beat down overhead, but there was no real power behind its glare. The ground still seemed to vibrate beneath Sara's feet and the horse's hooves, filling her with a sort of excited energy. She wanted to just open the floodgates to her mana and blast craters into the desert, to let the magic flow until there was no more left. But overshadowing that was the knowledge that the answers she sought were nearly at hand. If there was any place to discover why she had a magical signature practically identical to that of the faceless ones, the corpse of an Old God was the place. She didn't know what she was looking for, but Sara was confident she'd know it when she saw it.

_'I don't like this,'_ Leira sent to her as the sun passed its zenith and began to seek the horizon like a torpedo. _'Everything about this place feels... wrong.'_

_'Wrong how?'_

_'I feel... nauseous. Like I'm going to throw up.'_

_'I'm not surprised to be honest. You're walking on the grave of an Old God, Leira. Odds are we've been above C'Thun's body for days now. If you didn't feel uneasy, I'd be worried about you. Just try and keep your breakfast down, I don't think the horse would appreciate it.'_

_'Heh, I guess. Never knew C'Thun was so big. And hey, what about you? How're you feeling?'_

_'I'm...'_ She debated lying to Leira, but she was going to tell the draenei about her magic anyway. Eventually, at least. _'I feel... pretty good actually. Excited.'_

_'... riiight. Anyway, just a heads up. Higris is planning something. He won't say anything to us though.'_

_'You don't say? Higris, planning something?'_

_'I mean it. Just... don't let him behind you, okay?'_

_'Alright. Thanks.'_

Hive'Regal and Hive'Zora drifted by to their left and right respectively. As they got closer and closer the ground no longer seemed to vibrate, but the ball of nervousness in her stomach grew heavier. Maybe it was just her nerves, and not the presence of C'Thun? After all, she was going to need to start firing shadow bolts at the Hammer soon.

Ahn'Qiraj came into sight. Pillars of blackish stone stuck out from the mountains. Some of the rocks had collapsed and formed debris around the landscape, whereas other pillars had a second pillar magically floating on top of them. Hovering, gently humming crystals peppered either side of the road, each one of the amber shards as tall as a dragon. Up ahead were a series of faded purple stairs, half consumed by the sand, impossibly wide and dazzlingly tall that lead into the mountains. Their horses awkwardly took the steps, putting the main body of the desert and the setting sun far beneath them.

They reached the top of the stairs, and Sara beheld a little Cenarion camp. They'd planted trees in magically moistened soil, reaching upwards to the sky. Far to her right was a brown and green tent the size of her childhood home, probably hiding the Scarab Gong from view. Druids of many races meandered back and forth. Some were engaged in deep conversation, while others channeled nature magic into the trees. Still others stood by strategic points with stony faces. But past all of them was a checkpoint consisting of fifteen druids and beyond that a massive gate of dark, engraved stone, forming a wall with a colossal hexagon punched through the middle to function as a door.

Sara had arrived at Ahn'Qiraj.

Their guide lead them into the middle of the camp before having her horse turn around. "Alright everyone, this is as far as I go. Please dismount, I'll lead them back to Cenarion Hold. Please, stay safe."

Sara's riding companion got off first, and then she followed suit. Her legs hurt, but she'd had much worse in the past. She wobbled for a moment but found a place where everyone could see her and raised her voice. "Alright everyone! Eat and drink now while we have the chance. Sun's going down soon so the sooner we get into the caverns the better. Also since we are now literally on C'Thun's doorstep, I want everyone taking safety precautions! This should all be fairly common sense: don't touch anything if you don't know what it is, don't wander off on your own, absolutely do not listen to any voices in your head and announce them if there are any, including what they say! Higris!" The high elf snapped his head towards her. "Once we're through you'll lead the way. I'll be in the middle, Fardol will stay behind and watch for any ambushes. Let's get this done right and we'll all be home before tomorrow."

With her speech done Sara took the lead and everyone fell in behind her, forming four rows of six with Fardol at the back. They got a few looks from the Cenarion druids, but they all knew why they'd come.

Sara stopped to pull the small stack of authorization letters that would allow her into Ahn'Qiraj, and approached the druids. "Hello, I am Sara Smithers leading the expedition to Ahn'Qiraj. Who here is in charge of letting people through?"

"That would be me," said a tauren bull. Sara looked his way and her eyes widened. The tauren before her was built like a brick wall, with both of his ebony horns sticking out proudly from his head. The tough leather armor, colored like a forest, of the Cenarion Circle clung to his powerful muscles. His three fingered left hand clutched a gnarled wooden staff which was as tall as he was. And he certainly wasn't short, standing head and shoulders above Sara. His fur was a rich auburn, and his green eyes narrowed down at her. "Glad to see you. Do you have your papers?" he asked in a gruff but not unkind voice.

"I do," she said, handing the pile of parchment over to the tauren. "I trust everything is in order?" she asked as he took them in his free hand.

His eyes moved back and forth over the lines, stopping now and then to flip to the next page. Within a few minutes he nodded, but didn't give the papers back. "Everything is indeed in order, Miss Smithers. You and your companions are clear to enter Ahn'Qiraj, just be careful."

"We will, thank you!" Sara walked around him and approached the hexagonal gate to Ahn'Qiraj. Her heart hammered within her chest as she approached, the black stone looming high above he and casting a shadow into itself. Beyond, she could see the beginnings of Ahn'Qiraj. One foot stepped on the hexagon, then the other. She pushed on and within seconds it was behind her, and she was inside Ahn'Qiraj. Her breath was shaky and the earth seemed to sing with power.

The road diverged in two directions. To the left she knew would be the ruins that once held the majority of the Qiraji armies, and to the right was the dilapidated temple where C'Thun's body awaited. They headed to the right, towards another hexagon. Once they were there Sara had them stop.

"Alright, since we're so close to C'Thun we're going to start taking a very large amount of recordings. You all know the drill by now, let's get this done nice and quick. Keep your eyes and ears open. If we get attacked now the Cenarion Circle should still be close enough to help but let's not push our luck." Sara shrugged her pack off - and drank a little because it was still so unbearably dry - and took out the detection wand. Once she was done operating it she went around to everyone else, helping and recording, with Fardol standing far back.

There was _definitely_ Old God magic around. Luckily it was still incredibly sparse and unfocused. It drifted around in the air, but it didn't interact with anything. There was some interesting friction going on with the ley lines beneath them though. Their friction coefficients were unnervingly high, and Sara had to wonder if it was because of C'Thun, or if the eldritch deity was imprisoned there _because_ of the ley line friction.

Within an hour they'd finished up and the first hints of the nighttime chill were making themselves known. They packed up their equipment and began to move again, this time with Higris in front. Sara didn't know what he was planning, but having him in sight helped calm her nerves.

They passed the next hexagonal door, and came face to face with more of the long, purple stairs that she'd seen outside. Higris led them onto the sand-covered steps, one hand in the high elf's right pocket. Sara continued to climb, looking around Ahn'Qiraj. So far there was nothing especially impressive, though from so close she could see that most of the bricks had images of insects carved into them. Then Higris reached the top of the steps and Sara felt her soul suddenly become crushed under some immense magical weight, strangling her magic utterly. The high elf wheeled around and reached under his robes, pulling out an ornate dagger.

"Attack!" he - and at the same time, _Fardol_ \- shouted.


	13. Chapter 12: They Do Not Live

Sara

Sara's eyes widened as all at once, everyone in the Twilight's Hammer attacked. They whirled around and lashed out at whoever was closest to them and, since there was _something_ keeping magic down, almost everyone was overwhelmed at once. Then Fardol stormed by her, no different than usual but still seeming as bright as the sun, and tackled one of the cultists with his full plate armor.

She didn't get to notice anything else, because Higris himself charged at her with a dagger as long as her forearm aimed at her throat. She gasped and jerked herself to the side so hard she swore her spine snapped in half, and punched the high elf in the back as his momentum carried him past her.

He stumbled and fell into the sand, and she took the chance to grimace in pain. Punching him had hurt her hand pretty badly, so she took the chance to shake off the pain and blast him with a shadow bolt -

\- except her magic didn't answer her. _Couldn't_ answer her. Panic began to blossom within her chest as she realized that for the first time in her entire life she was without her powers. She stumbled away from the high elf as, quick as a whip, he got up and charged her again. He got to her before she could react and stabbed forward, but luckily Sara's time in the Mage Quarter Dueling Club paid off. She dodged into his guard and grabbed his weapon arm with both hands, struggling to disarm him.

With his free arm, he punched her in the face.

Her nose didn't break, thank goodness, but she fell flat on her ass and brought her hands up to clutch her cheek. She almost didn't realize was Higris coming at her with his dagger poised to kill. Still sitting, she brought her legs in and kicked upwards at his hand. He veered around, but it was too late. With a solid _thunk_ her feet made contact, knocking the dagger from his hands and down the long stairs, clittering and clattering as it tumbled down.

"No!" he shouted as he ran after it, hurrying down the steps. Sara got up and grinned wickedly.

He'd turned his back to her.

She screamed and jumped at him, grabbing him from behind and shoving him onto the steps. Sadly, before she could grind his face into the stone he caught himself on his hands. Then the elf lifted his legs and _flipped himself over with her attached_ , crushing her against the stairs instead. She struggled to push him off, but then a sharp pain flared in the side of her head as he elbowed her and got off.

With a weak groan she collapsed limply into the stairs, gasping for breath. She vaguely heard Fardol shout some nonsense about how 'the Light could not be silenced' followed by a surge of yellow light, but most of her attention was on Higris running down and reclaiming his dagger, then running up to her confidently.

"Not so tough without your magic now are you?" he asked as he got close, raising his weapon.

She lifted a leg and kicked him in the crotch.

With an almost comical noise he doubled over and dropped his dagger again, keeling over. Sara fought through the pounding in her head and got to her feet, tackling the incapacitated cult leader a second time. This time she had more success, knocking him off the stairs and onto a flat section of road right beneath it. He brought his hands up to fight her off, but thanks to her crippling shot she had no trouble balling up her hands and whacking him in the face several times, including one glancing blow to his throat that left him nearly choking. Getting off of him, Sara flipped the elf over onto his stomach and held his squirming hands behind his back as he kept coughing. She rifled through his pockets, searching for...

There! She felt something hard in his left pocket and pulled out what looked like a blue wedding ring, covered in inscriptions. It was a magic suppressor, made of cobalt instead of steel.

She prepared to crush it - the runes made it fragile - but Higris suddenly thrashed and dislodged her, sending the ring flying out of her grip and into a nearby sand dune where it rested in a tiny crater. This time Higris pinned her and delivered a solid punch to Sara's gut, forcing the breath out of her. With one hand he grabbed her left wrist and pummeled the other into her face, snapping her head into the sand with a splatter of blood from her now broken nose.

Sara had never been hurt so badly. Whenever she fought she had her shadowy barrier active, and in Stormwind the duels never got so physical. She felt like she was suffocating from having the wind driven out of her lungs, and her face felt like it was peeling off, melting from the inside and dribbling out of whatever holes it could find. She glanced back up as Higris prepared another punch, but then a blast of golden light so close it felt as though it blistered her skin struck and threw him off of her like a rag doll. Sara gasped and rolled over onto her stomach, pushing herself up with shaking hands. Blood pounded in her head and dripped onto the desert sands, but she forced herself onto two feet.

Ignoring the screams of people fighting and getting hurt and a faint buzzing in the air, she grabbed the magic inhibitor and threw it to the ground. She lifted her foot then stomped it once, twice, and a third time to shatter it.

The crushing weight on her soul lifted and she cackled, summoning a shadowy barrier around herself.

Her magic was back. Oh she would never take it for granted again. Her exhilaration was such that she barely felt the nervous energy of Silithus inside her gut, or the blood slowly flowing from her nose. She fixed a recovering and approaching Higris with a wicked sneer and lit up her hands, ready to blast him into pieces. She brought up her left hand as shadow energy turned necrotic green around her hands, the magic scraping and bashing against her bones as she over channeled but _she didn't care_ because now he was too close to dodge her shadow bolt, too close to do anything, and -

Higris's hands lit up with arcane light and Sara's shadow bolt dissolved. Her magic slipped away like a bar of soap and her attempts to reclaim it were about as successful as grabbing a cloud. The dark magic around her hands was gone, and all that was left were the trails of dark mist her magic always left behind. She reeled back as the blue light of the counterspell finished condensing on her, but at the very least her defenses were up.

The elf scooped up his dagger and finished closing the distance, stabbing at her shields. The barrier held strong and the recoil wrenched the weapon out of his hands. The cultist swore, but Sara turned away from him. The others were still fighting. _Leira_ was still fighting! Leira might be hurt!

She charged up the steps as fast as she could in her injured state, the rush of blood deafening in her ears. Now that the suppressor was destroyed she saw that the people she'd brought stood a chance. Maria stood at range, clutching a gash in her side as she and her imp launched fire magic. Fardol had tackled someone to the ground and was beating them to a pulp with Light-enshrouded fists. Leira had disarmed someone and, using her newly acquired dagger, fought two cultists at once. There were several other skirmishes going on, kicking up sand with fists, weapons and spells. Someone near her feet gasped weakly, dying from a bloody hole in their chest.

Maybe she'd revive him later.

The priority was helping Leira. She couldn't use her magic and, being inside a bubble of magic, nor could she punch and kick. But she could always just... run them over.

Pushing her legs, Sara zeroed in on Leira's fight and then suddenly a puff of smoke enveloped her. Sara's mouth opened in a startled shout - no, a startled _bleat_ as everything seemed to grow tremendously. She fell to the ground and fell forward onto all fours, looking around. A quick glance down at her arms left her confused. Stubby, thin, dark, ending in a solid hoof. It took her a moment to realize she'd been polymorphed.

Sara whipped around and, unused to four legs, fell clumsily to the side within her barrier. The arcane light faded from Higris's hands and was replaced by crackling ruby flames as he aimed a spell at someone else. She had to stop him! Sara got up and charged him, only to fall with an angry _baa_ halfway there. By then, he'd shot his fireball at Fardol and knocked the dwarf off his feet.

Three more failed attempts at charging him later, another puff of smoke engulfed her and the fading spell returned her to an upright position on its own. Her nose had ceased bleeding, her head was clear, it was like she hadn't been hurt at all. Even better Sara could feel the counterspell's effects wearing off. That was it. Higris had used his counterspell so it'd be a while before he could cast it again, and it would be minutes before any other polymorphic magics could touch her. He'd kept her and her faceless magic out of the fight long enough, but now! Now blazing emerald power pooled in her fists, casting a faint shadow on the land as she took aim and - !

She didn't even feel the impact.

One moment she was preparing to turn Higris inside out, and the next she was flying through the air. Then her flight came to an abrupt end, burying her and her magic shell inside a sand dune. Once her head stopped spinning, she turned around to see what had just happened.

_Oh come on!_ she thought.

The impact that had knocked her through the air was from a creature landing. It resembled a sphinx, standing a good fifteen yards tall. Every inch of its body seemed to be made of jagged, craggy black stone, reflecting the sun in all directions. A lion body extended backwards with two golden bracelets around its forepaws, and a pair of enormous wings sprouted from the sides of the creature with a barbed tail swishing behind it. Except instead of proper flesh and blood, the wings were made of rocky feathers that turned from dark blue to sun-bleached bronze at the tips. Its upper body was vaguely humanoid, but also made of stone. Clawed hands clenched at its side, lightly touching a golden waistband. Its head appeared to be a skull, colored brilliant tan with glinting green emeralds for eyes as it stared her down, casting a shadow upon the rest of the fight.

Needless to say, everyone stopped fighting to take in the appearance of the monster.

Then the other monsters came. From over the mountains and walls surrounding them crawled a swarm of dog-sized silithid scarabs, and from the hexagonal door they'd been approaching came a handful of qiraji.

At first she thought they were human women, but they only resembled her race in passing. They wore light blue blouses and baggy pants of the same color, and a veil over their faces revealed only glowing green eyes and tufts of black hair. Their helmets - or perhaps those were also part of their bodies - were green to the side and patterned like a compound eye, and the rest of the helmet was black save for the two silver horns sticking straight up. Green sickle claws the size of Sara's forearm sprouted from their shoulders and their feet were almost birdlike with their gray talons, to say nothing of the four insect wings buzzing and humming at their backs or the green stingers they had in place of hands.

Silithid, qiraji, and if memory served the construct was an obsidian destroyer.

Snarling, Sara quickly formed the spell matrix for a shadow bolt and loaded it with murderous power. Within seconds she shot the laughing magic skull at the obsidian destroyer's head. It looked her way and with eerie calm, lifted its left hand into the shadow bolt's path. The skull froze in place and dark violet magic flowed from it into the obsidian destroyer's hand until, within a second, the shadow bolt was no more.

Sara blinked at the display of anti-magic. "Oh boy," she said weakly. Then the qiraji and silithid attacked.

From her position in the sand dunes beside the stairs none of them attacked her, but everyone else was besieged. Leira fought against two of the feminine qiraji while Fardol slammed a fist into the ground. The ground beneath him cracked with yellow light, holy energy billowing out from him to ten yards away. It forced the scarabs to skitter away, lest they tread on the consecrated land. To her satisfaction, she noticed that the qiraji and silithid weren't leaving the cultists unmolested.

Then the obsidian destroyer blasted her with lightning.

She yelped and jumped, but thankfully the electric magic deflected across her barrier. Then the corrupted construct leaped into the air, far higher than anything made of stone should've been capable of, and landed on top of her shadowy defenses. It knocked her away like a playing ball and she nearly ended up tumbling down the stairs before she found her footing. Sara gasped when she inspected the damage; there was a tiny crack in her green shield. _It could damage her shields!_

She repaired the crack and prepared another shadow bolt, finishing the spell within a second and launching it at the obsidian destroyer. Like before it held out a hand and disassembled the spell, but in that time Sara began casting a corruptive spell to eat away at its very being. The spell was simple, but she didn't use it often so it took some time to recall it, though when she was done faint black clouds began to buzz around the destroyer. For a moment at least, because then it balled its hands into fists and slammed them into each other. Where they collided a blue sphere burst outwards, curving back around its form. The light engulfed the construct and dispelled her corruption spell.

Her eye twitched.

Alright, no more Ms. Nice Sara. As it ran at her she reached deeper into her mana pool and began forming another spell. It was a personal creation of hers, operating on the reverse principle of her resurrection spells. Wicked green mist formed a ball in front of her chest, and then she held out both hands at the rapidly approaching obsidian destroyer. From her orb of death energy a twisting beam of emerald lightning blasted out, seeking the construct's very life essence. And it missed.

With impossible dexterity the stone sphinx dodged to the side, then its own hands lit up with arcane power. It held its left hand up and made a throwing motion at her, sending a blast of ball lightning at her. Like before it deflected off her shield, and as it stood there contemplating its failure to damage her barrier, Sara successfully nailed it in the chest with a fully powered shadow bolt. The magic projectile splashed harmlessly off its glossy skin. Then it seemed to figure out what it was going to go and held its right hand at her.

A sphere of arcane runes materialized around Sara and, before she could react, they vanished, taking her shield with them. Her first thought was that the obsidian destroyer had dispelled her shield, but when she looked up at it and saw a gleaming green sphere around its form, she realized it had _spellstolen it!_

She was already casting a shadow bolt and it was too late to stop, so she watched as the blast was effortlessly absorbed by her own magics. Then the obsidian destroyer was right in front of her, whipping around with its impossible agility. The length of its tail came flying at her, piercing through her stolen shield as though it wasn't even there, and Sara tried to jump back to avoid it.

Too late.

The tail _cracked_ along her legs and sent her flying with a choked off scream. She expected to land on the hard stone of the stairs, but instead she hit something soft and cushioned. Fighting through the pain, Sara looked over to see who'd she hit, and found herself staring into the compound eyes of a qiraji battleguard.

The feminine creature's eyes went wide and it backed away from her in a hurry. "I-I'm sorry," it stammered in accented Common. "I didn't mean to - " But Sara hardly heard it over her pain and instead cut it off with a desperate blast of unrefined shadow magic that left it without a torso. The body slumped to the ground.

She looked back as the obsidian destroyer glided towards her like a snake, placing itself right on top of her and raising an enormous, stony paw. Sara gasped in panic and summoned another shadowy barrier. The paw came down with a thunderous crash, but left no visible mark in her shield. With the time she had, Sara glanced downwards to see what the damage was. She wished she hadn't. Both of her legs were broken, the stark white bone sticking through the thigh in both of them and... and was that _her_ blood sinking into the sand? That wasn't good. That wasn't good. _What was she going to do?!_

_SLAM! SLAM!_ The obsidian destroyer hammered away at her shadowy barrier a few more times before relenting. Then it paused, and Sara took the opportunity to look to the left at the rest of the fight.

It was actually going quite well. The Twilight's Hammer was in full retreat. The cultists were being chased by the qiraji down the stairs and out of sight, bringing their dead and wounded with them, leaving her own group to deal with the rest of the attackers. Leira and Fardol were cleaning up the qiraji and the steady stream of silithid scarabs was held at bay by her mages and warlocks. A few bodies dotted the ground here and there, but that was nothing she couldn't fix...

_SLAM!_

... provided neither the blood loss nor the construct killed her first.

Sara looked up and aimed a shadow bolt right into the creature's underbelly, but its stolen shadow shell absorbed the spell. It paused its next slam, and Sara gasped in fear when it dispelled her defenses a second time right before bringing the massive stone paw down. She summoned another barrier just in time to intercept it, but the limb came so close the _SLAM_ made her teeth rattle. A silithid scarab came over the wall and began charging at her, but she didn't have the time to blast it because the obsidian destroyer lifted its leg again, dispelling her shield.

She winced as the leg came down again, throwing up another hasty shadowy barrier to absorb it. How was she going to _kill the damned thing?!_

Her barrier was dispelled again and, as she was busy reforming it, she noticed the scarab charging her veer around her as if she were an obstacle, throwing itself at a summoned voidwalker. Then the leg came down again, once more too close for comfort.

"Hey! I could use some help!" she shouted while frantically conjuring her barriers over and over as the obsidian destroyer stomped at her in a frenzy. She was totally impotent, able to do nothing more but channel magic into her defenses and if she slipped up for even a second...

Luckily, her friend killed the last of the qiraji by running it through the chest with a dagger and then everyone turned their attention to the obsidian destroyer, including Fardol.

"Hey!" Leira shouted as she charged it, knocking aside dead scarabs as she did. "Hey you! Focus on me!" It glanced her way. "Betcha you're pretty worried about facing someone who _doesn't use magic_ aren't ya?!" That seemed to get its attention, and Sara dimly realized why. The obsidian destroyer was built for anti-magic. It would consider someone who _wasn't_ a spell caster a much bigger threat than someone who was, like little old her, laying there and bleeding into the sand. It got off her and roared and Leira, charging at the draenei. Sara winced when it tried to step on her, but Leira danced out of the way and chipped it lightly with her dagger.

_Come on Sara,_ she told herself. _Do something!_ Spells began to pelt the rock construct's shield to no effect, until one of the mages successfully dispelled Sara's stolen barrier from the construct. Even then though, the spells smashing into it were useless beyond a distraction.

It swiped at Leira, this time leaning down its upper body and lashing out with stony claws. Again, Leira dodged the swipe and struck a gash into it. Sara pushed her upper body up and aimed a shaking hand at the destroyer, summoning her vast shadow magic. Surely, if she really put her back into it she'd be able to hurt it at least a little, right? Her arms burned as she over channeled again, also causing the bones sticking from her legs to sear her flesh, but she ignored it despite how the pain made her vision blur and fired a thin ray of violet shadow magic at the back of the obsidian destroyer's head.

To her surprise, she actually managed to make it stumble and chip a small but noticeable fragment of its body off. It looked her way, and Sara gulped. Oops.

It turned around fully to try and stomp her, forcing her to throw up another dark barrier. But she noticed something behind it. Leira had grabbed onto its tail and hoisted herself up onto the obsidian destroyer's body. Then the draenei ran up the construct, keeping her balance even as it thrashed, and wrapped herself around its head to begin slashing indiscriminately with her weapon. It reared back from Sara with a roar of frustration, and then Fardol came in with glowing gauntlets and smashed into one of its hind legs, the dwarf starting to pummel away at it.

Sara released another focused beam of magic but her aim was off, so she only succeeded in chipping off the tip of one of its wings. Meanwhile it reached up with its clawed hands to throw Leira off from it and probably into the mountains. Sara gasped. What could she do? She didn't know how to cast her barriers around _other people_ so -

"Not on _my_ watch!" Fardol roared, summoning more of the Holy Light. A chime filled the air as a winged crown appeared above Leira, shrouding her in a transparent gray orb as she kept attacking the construct's head. Its hands scrabbled at the holy barrier, but to no avail.

By this point, everyone still standing aimed their spells at its legs, hoping to topple the construct. The scarabs had ceased to swarm without their qiraji masters to guide them, so Sara joined Fardol in the others in trying to topple the construct from the ground up while Leira began to accumulate damage on its head, her face the epitome of ferocity.

The obsidian destroyer stopped what it was doing and lifted its left hand into the air. Arcane light glinted around its hand and Sara felt another effect grab hold of her soul. Unlike the magic suppressor, which was crushing, this one was _pulling._ Out of her body, and the bodies of everyone else casting spells and even Fardol, streams of pulsating blue-white energy drained out and swirled around the construct's hand, flowing into its body in a steady stream of mana.

"No!" Fardol shouted. "Take it down, take it down now!" A bone-shattering punch from him finally snapped its left hind leg, but it continued to stand on three and channel the mana spell.

Sara put her back into it, blasting it more and more even as she began to grow dizzy from blood loss. She wasn't sure, but she could've sworn she saw light beginning to glisten between the cracks of its stone skin and a deep hum resonated in the air. And then...

_Crack!_ Its other hind leg shattered in two and its lower body fell down. Surprised, the obsidian destroyer interrupted its own channel to inspect the damage, and in that time Leira drove the dagger into its left eye like a pickaxe. She hammered it in with one fist as the construct roared, flinging itself about, but then the dagger went deeper still and the obsidian destroyer froze.

Slowly at first, it listed to the side and fell. Leira left the dagger where it was and leaped off once it crashed into the ground, motionless. The light inside of it faded and the humming went away, and Sara's magic's mist was already blowing away.

All was quiet.

"We... we did it," Sara whispered.

The draenei ran over to her while Fardol collected everyone else and started healing them with the Light. She crouched over Sara and gasped. "Holy _shit_ Sara, are you okay?"

"Do I look okay?" she groused, glancing down at her broken legs and increasingly bloody pants. "Ah, shit..."

"Hold still, I'll help." Leira held her hands over the wound and narrowed her eyes. The blue light seemed to grow intense, and an azure naaru sigil appeared over her forehead.

"Wait, what are you - " Then she began to scream. At least she thought she did, because all she felt was her throat vibrating air and all she heard was her own frantic heartbeat. It was molten lead poured onto her body. It was a tanker of salt water dumped upon her wounds. It was needles stuck inside her flesh and thrust sideways. Sara thrashed and surely she was screaming because Leira was holding her down, her eyes wide and trying to speak something but she couldn't hear her, could barely see through all the red, couldn't feel anything besides the hands of Ragnaros the Firelord massaging her legs.

Then it ended and Sara went limp, breathing heavily. The sigil over Leira's head was gone, but her jaw hung wide open. To the side, everyone else stared at her. "By the Light Sara, what was _that?!_ "

"I hate you," she wheezed. "I hate you so much. What did you _do_ to me?" Sara demanded.

"I healed you. Look at your legs. Think you can stand?"

"Healed?" She glanced down. Sure enough, the shattered bones jutting from her thighs were gone and while the blood she'd lost remained, she felt none of the symptoms of blood loss and wasn't losing any more of the vital fluid. "Healed. Thanks I, I owe you one. Just help me up."

"No problem, here." Leira reached out a hand and Sara accepted the help. She stumbled once, then found her balance and limped over to one of the corpses, phantom pain still lingering about her calves.

"What are you doing?" Leira hissed.

"Reviving him," she groaned. "We've still got a little journey ahead of us and this fight took up too much time as it is. Especially since half our people just vanished." It irked her that the Hammer had gotten away in the chaos of the qiraji attack. They'd even took their dead, so interrogating the fallen wasn't a possibility. They could've been preparing for a counter attack. Though then again... maybe not. Hopefully the qiraji would keep them busy.

"You sure? I mean, we just got attacked by the qiraji and we're barely inside! Maybe you should call it quits."

She snapped her head over to glare at Leira. "Not. An. Option," she ground out. "Please let me focus. Let me resurrect them and we can go from there."

Looking over the body of the man, Sara nodded to herself. He was one of their warlocks, a tall and muscled man with blonde hair afflicted by male pattern baldness despite his youth. She let her faceless magic flow, reaching out and grasping his soul to begin dragging it back. It was just as difficult as it had been with the Twilight cultist in her bedroom over a month ago, but all the same the slash across his neck healed up and with a flash of green light, the warlock sputtered back to life. His eyes darted back and forth, confused. "What... where? How did I?"

"Leira, can you explain it to him? I have to get to the other four." Leaving the draenei to explain to the man what had happened, Sara dragged herself to the other body. It was a little gnome woman, and she breathed out a sigh of relief. Gnomes. Gnomes were small, so she'd probably be easier to resurrect than the man had been.

Maria walked next to her, a thin scar across her forehead. "Holy shit, you can actually do it?" she asked.

"Yes," Sara grunted. It was easier to resurrect the gnome, but it still took some effort. After about ten seconds of casting she was done, and the woman sputtered back to life now that she no longer lacked a large chunk of her intestines. "Fardol!" she shouted. The paladin looked her way. "Is everyone healed up?"

"Aye they are, Sara. Ya really bringin' them back to life?"

"I am. Two down, three to go." She walked over to the next corpse, but someone else got in her way.

She grabbed her shoulders and pulled herself _far_ too close for comfort. "Please! It's Alendin, he's, he's dead! Please, you said you can revive him right? Please you _have_ to hurry!"

"But - " Sara tried to push forward but the teary eyed mage stayed in her way. "Fine! Is he that one?" she asked, pointing at a body slumped on the side of the stairs. The woman, a hair trigger away from sobbing, nodded mutely. "Fine. I'll do him next." Sara didn't even approach him, casting the resurrection spell from where she stood. Like it always did, emerald magic shone from her hands and scraped along her bones - especially her legs - and then he was alive again.

"Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you!" The woman ran over to him and began fussing over the confused man, leaving Sara to resurrect the last two people in peace. Once the last woman was back, Sara slumped down onto the ground and breathed out heavily. Her head spun and her breaths came in ragged breaths. She still had quite a bit of mana left, but she'd never in her life spent so much magic in a single sitting, or over channeled for so long.

While she rested, one of the people she'd revived - the gnome - approached her. "Sara, did you really - ?" Sara nodded. The gnome bowed her head, blue pigtails bouncing. "Thank you. Light bless you, Sara."

Light bless her. Ha. Speaking of the Light, what had Leira _done_ to her? Sure she had faceless magic, but that didn't mean holy healing spells would burn her. Did it?

Eventually, everyone was gathered and Sara stood to face them and speak. "Alright, it appears that - "

Fardol interrupted her. "They already know, Sara. I told 'em on the way here about what to expect. Though sure wasn't countin' on the qiraji attackin' us too."

"Why not? We're in Ahn'Qiraj, it's always been a possibility." He'd told them. He'd told them?! She told him that she would handle it and he went around doing it anyway?! Never mind that she didn't actually handle it, but he had the _nerve_ to circumvent her authority?! "It doesn't matter. We're all healed up and now that those leeches are gone, we can make some progress. Sun's going down, so - "

"Hang on!" a man shouted. "You can't be serious can you? We all almost died! We should head back while we still can!" Murmurs of agreement filled the air. "This was a fool's errand!"

"A fool's errand?! We beat the shit out of them!" she challenged. "Even when they got the drop on us with that magic suppressor, where are we and where are they huh? They're being chased into a corner by the qiraji and here we are no worse for the wear! We even killed an _obsidian destroyer!_ We spent so long coming here, so much money coming here, and you want to call it quits just because we got into a little fight? When you signed up KNOWING that was a possibility?!"

"Fighting the Twilight's Hammer was never part of the agreement!" he challenged. "And where were you huh? Fardol told us all about how you weren't doing anything about them, and he had to do all the heavy lifting!" Sara's eyes widened, then narrowed in anger. She exhaled through her nose. "You clearly don't care about any of us! 'Oh, a doomsday cult is using us to get to C'Thun? Who cares?' Why should we stick around when - "

Sara crossed her arms and rapidly uncrossed them, lashing at the sand and stairs with a miniature shadow nova. "SHUT UP!" she roared, then lowered her voice dangerously. "I don't know if any even remember why you're here. No, clearly you don't. We're here because sooner or later the Liberality Confederacy is going to find the last Old God and _kill it!_ And guess what happens then? That's right, the entire planet gets destroyed! We absolutely have to identify their parasitic spell and have a counterspell up and running by the time that happens, but do you know who's working on it? US! Everyone else is going around saying 'Oh, we'll do it later. Oh, it's someone else's problem.' Well guess what? We're that 'someone else'! So unless you want to go and say that you'd rather have the entire damn planet get destroyed than roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty, we're continuing and that is FINAL!" she roared, heart hammering in her chest.

"Any questions?" she growled. Nobody spoke. "Good. Pick up the shit they left behind and let's go. We're behind schedule as it is." Sara turned around and they all started picking their stuff back up. Luckily nothing had been damaged in the fight: the expedition could continue as planned, and without the dead weight.

Sara was almost glad Higris had attacked. It was certainly the most exciting thing to happen on the trip and had caught her off guard. She'd been so certain she had him wrapped around her finger with the whole 'faceless magic' routine. If it hadn't caused her so much damn _pain_ and almost ruined everything she had worked so hard to achieve and pitted everyone against her, she could've forgiven him. As it was he had broken her nose, trapped her magic, gotten her legs broken, and burned by the Holy Light. She was going to kill him. Slowly. Maybe she'd give him a Heart Murmur.

Burned by the Holy Light...

Pushing the thought from her head, she continued leading the trek into the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. They stopped for food and water, and took a few more measurements in stark silence. The sun went beneath the horizon, but they reached the caverns before the cold could do much harm. The entrance was concealed behind a massive set of stairs, with crumbling stone pillars and an enormous replica of the Scarab Gong standing tall and proud between them. It was behind the structure that the majority of Ahn'Qiraj's subterranean structure was located, and it was there that they took shelter from the cold.

The caves were enormous and silent. The sand gave way to moist, packed dirt, and rotting purple tissue clung to the walls. Dimly glowing sacks hung from the ceiling, providing a minuscule amount of light. Scattered around like trash were dozens of empty insect exoskeletons. They ranged from the size of a large dog to nearly twice the size of the obsidian destroyer.

Sara led them through the tunnels, heading to the left and spiraling downwards into the lukewarm earth. The caverns were malformed in shape, like flowing water except for the places where they opened up into enormous caverns, with roofs arching high above, so high Sara wondered how they didn't poke through the surface. In each of the larger caverns they went through she had them stop and take more readings. In each of the caverns, they approached C'Thun and her nerves threatened to make her start jumping and squealing like a child on a sugar high.

Her group finished up another set of readings in a chamber that housed the corpse of an enormous sand reaver, and continued to plummet. Sara's gaze wandered up to the ceiling, and her skin itched nervously. It wasn't enough that she'd been attacked by the cultists, an anti-magic construct, and the qiraji, but now she had to be underground as well with so many tons of soil and stone ready to plummet upon her?

... actually, now that she thought of it neither the qiraji nor the silithid had attacked _her._ She was tempted to chalk that up to her faceless powers, but it was foolish of her to just suddenly write off everything unusual that happened as a result of her powers. There had to be something she was missing.

_I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -_

But what?

A hand suddenly grasped her left shoulder and she snapped her head over to glare at whoever had snuck up on her. "WHAT?!" Leira jerked away from her, eyes wide. Sara winced and relaxed. "Sorry," she muttered. "It's just, you know, everything that's happened. What do you need?"

"Do you want to talk about what happened back there? You know, when I healed you?"

A shiver gently crawled down her spine on spider legs. "Not really but... okay hang on." She flashed a bit of magic into Leira's mind, connecting the right strings to her own, and nodded.

_'Okay,'_ Sara sent. _'I guess I owe you this much. So um, you know how I have my powers.'_

_'Duh. Anything new?'_

_'Well, I'd gotten my Magister title. Two years ahead of schedule too, not exactly record breaking but pretty damn impressive if I do say so myself,'_ she said confidently. _'So I figured hey, why settled for that? Why not just go for broke and shoot for Archmage? Problem is I had no idea what to do my dissertation on. I needed something big, something unexplored, but also something within my abilities. And then I realized hey, my shadow magic's been pretty unusual all my life. Maybe I could use that. So... I did. I got my hands on my magic signature.'_ Leira didn't need to know how she'd mind controlled someone. Sara didn't want to hear how disappointed the warrior would be. _'It didn't look like... anything like a human's magic signature should be, Leira. I went to compare it to other magical signatures and the only one it resembled was... it was... '_

_'Easy, take a deep breath. It can't be that bad.'_

She did. The air was warm and while not exactly humid, it wasn't as achingly dry as above ground. _'Alright. It resembled the magic signature of a faceless one. I have the same magic they do, Leira, so from there I got the idea to research the Old Gods and here we are.'_

The draenei's eyes went wide and she released a slow breath. _'Oh... wow. That really explains a lot actually.'_ Leira took a step away from Sara, drawing a wince from her. _'So... are you okay?'_

_'I guess. I know the 'what' of my powers now, but I still need to know the how and why. And then you used the Light to heal my legs. Thanks for that by the way, it'd really suck if I couldn't walk.'_

_'... and the Light didn't really agree with your magic. Sara could you please, um, break the link? I need to think a little.'_

_'I... '_ Sara looked away from her friend. _'I, sure.'_ A flicker of shadow magic and the telepathy was over. There, it was done. Leira knew the story now, and judging by how she was putting distance between the two of them she wasn't exactly keen on staying close to her. And why would she? The power of the faceless was all-corruptive, foul and wicked; it had to be quarantined didn't it?

They took readings from two more chambers. One was a regular cave, but the other was made of dark bricks and shaped like a colossal triangle, with two podiums complete with stairs. Two incredibly large hunks of chitin resided at the top of each podium, most likely the deceased twin emperors of the qiraji. The ambient magic was certainly changing so close to the body of C'Thun, but even the hum of power surging through the land and up into Sara couldn't overshadow her unease at being so precariously beneath the ground. How structurally sound were these caverns? How long had it been since anything came by to perform maintenance on them?

After a quick stop for food and water they continued on, deeper and deeper, and then the soil and organic structures gave way again to stone, patterned in rectangles and strange interlocking puzzle-piece bricks. Light now came only from the oil lanterns they had brought, peeling away the pitch black with flickering orange light. Then they came to a sort of loop; the hallway split to the left and right, then conjoined on the far end. On the far end however was a single passage towards the inside of the 'loop', down a relatively puny flight of stairs. And down that flight of stairs was the final chamber. Sara led them to the stairwell, and all of them beheld the sight of their destination.

It was absolutely enormous, maybe half the size of the Trade District in Stormwind but without buildings and stalls in the way. Its sheer scale was absolutely imposing even within the weak lantern light. The shape was as though someone had taken a circle, elongated it, and cut off the resulting oval at the halfway point. The entry stairs were at the edge of the rounded portion, and on the far side was a raised platform with two rusty gongs on them, each emblazoned with the image of a scarab. Pillars surrounded the edge of the rounded portions, with long dead torches affixed to the wall between each. The brick pattern of the floor was in complete disrepair, sometimes broken by a line of greenish squares snaking around the floor. Craters the size of Sara, craters the size of a _drake_ had been punched in the floor complete with rubble strewn about haphazardly. In the center of it all was the corpse of the terrible Old God, C'Thun.

There was no creature on the planet Sara could've ever hoped to compare C'Thun with, but if she had to try her first choice would have been an octopus. The tentacles, and indeed the entire body, were pale tan as if made to camouflage in the desert. The tentacles were covered in armor plating with white spines the size of a tauren bull sticking off from them. The eight tentacles sank beneath the soil and trailed off to places unknown.

That was where any comparison to an octopus ended. Measuring from where one cottage-thick tentacle vanished beneath the land and the opposite side, C'Thun's head took up roughly three quarters of the space. It was as tall as it was wide, somewhat rounded. Between the places where its gigantic tentacles merged with its body were its mouths, sideways and slammed shut with the white fangs sticking into itself. All along its skin were burns and bruises, cuts surrounded by dry, black blood and arrow holes. Above each of the eight maws was an enormous purple eye, rolled back into its socket so as to hide any evidence of a pupil.

And that was just the bottom half of its head. The top half was occupied with countless smaller, similarly dead eyes of which a good number had their lids closed over them and limp tendrils which, while not as gargantuan as the eight primaries, were three times Sara's height and ended in wickedly sharp points. To complete the image of the Old God, at the top of its head was a series of sandy spikes standing tall and proud, angled inward towards the head as if to protect something vital. The spikes nearly doubled the height of C'Thun's head as they rested upon it like a crown.

Behind her, Leira threw up.

"Alright, here we are. Remember the safety instructions I gave earlier?" she said, trying her hardest to keep her excitement out of her voice. "Well quadruple it here. Watch your step and for the love of all that we hold dear _don't touch anything!_ You all know what to do, so let's get to it. Fardol, Leira, try to stay back."

Carefully and quietly, everyone proceeded down the steps. They fanned out around Sara, whispering as if afraid that making too much noise would rouse the giant. As they approached, the light from their lanterns made C'Thun look all the more sinister. Sara took out her detection wand and nervously took the reading of the surroundings. As she suspected, the latent magic in the air was heavily altered. She took a few steps towards C'Thun and took another reading, then another step towards it, writing down how the magic changed as she grew closer and closer to the Old God.

Once she was closer to its head than the tips of its tentacles, she surrounded herself in a barrier. Ten yards from C'Thun's skin. Five yards. One yard, and she dared go no closer. She hopped back and shuddered, happy to not have to look at its limp, dead eyes. Just the sight of them made her feel like her own eyes were rolling back in their sockets.

Everyone worked diligently, eager to get away from the monster, but this was also where there was the most data to collect, especially to see if there was any hint of the spell that linked the Old Gods to Azeroth's integrity. People regularly went back up the stairs to Fardol and Leira to have the former use the Holy Light on them, just in case. Except for Sara given her... adverse reaction to the Light, but luckily shouting at everyone earlier had put that out of their memory.

Leira wouldn't look at her though.

Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. One hour. The air was warm and smelled like dust, not death and decay like she'd expected and indeed, C'Thun's body was completely untouched by any decomposition. They attempted to scrape slime off the walls to culture, but there was nothing alive in the entire chamber except for them. The entire time Sara would have even felt welcome in the chamber, if it wasn't for the way C'Thun's eyes had rolled back in its head or the tons of dirt hanging above them, poised to implode at the slightest disturbance.

Another shiver graced her spine with its presence.

She did some modifications on the detection wand. Analyzing the latent magic was all well and good, but she needed C'Thun's own magic signature. She again approached the Old God, and lightly tapped the surface of its skin, shielded and bracing for the worst.

Nothing happened. The detection wand's transparent shards filled up with horrible, inky purple magic that gave her flashbacks to when her own magical signature was taken. It had been the same color, hadn't it?

The instant the detection wand had enough magic she pulled it away and gingerly retreated, writing down the numbers it had. She didn't have the time to arrange it into a proper signature graph, but just by looking at it Sara had the uneasy feeling that it was the same sawtooth pattern that the faceless had, that she had. Maybe even more similar to hers than the faceless one's signature had been.

After an hour and a half, they were done. There were just two more things left to do and they could leave. She returned to the stairs and handed Fardol the detection wand. "Burn the magic out of it," she said. "If you think you there's any left at all, keep burning it. If you're not sure if you burned it enough, keep burning it."

"Roger," he said as he took it in his hands, which began to glow. Next to him, Leira was still green at the gills and pointedly avoiding looking at Sara.

That churning in Sara's stomach was surely just the presence of C'Thun, right?

She climbed back down the stairs, grabbed a simple wooden staff, and raised her voice. "Alright! Everyone gather around!" Several people jumped, but began to approach. "Alright, that's all the data we need from the instruments. The next step is the two spells I need to cast personally. Relax, I'm not going to bring it back from the dead or anything." She rolled her eyes. "Was hard enough doing that for _you_ lot," she said, successfully getting a good natured chuckle. "Just in case though, if I say to stop me, or you suspect I absolutely need to stop, then counterspell the shit out of me. Now clear a path!" she bellowed, and they formed a clear shot between Sara and C'Thun. She fixed the dead deity with a glare, and raised the staff in her right hand.

Deathly green magic flared around her hands and flowed along the shaft of wood as she directed her powers at C'Thun. She hadn't been lying, she wasn't going to revive C'Thun, but there was another use for her resurrection powers. Determining the state of the eldritch monster's soul.

When a body died, the soul began to drift and it left a 'path' through the nether. Her magic had always been able to follow this path, even when she was young and hadn't known what she was actually doing. The further a soul drifted the harder it was for her magic to reach it, and harder for her to pull it all the way back to its body. Larger souls were also 'heavier' in magical terms, but all souls drifted at the same rate and even the slightest touch of her resurrection magic had always been able to tell her how far a soul had drifted into the afterlife.

She didn't know how far C'Thun's soul had drifted.

It was like having a flashlight and shining it into a long dark tunnel, trying but failing to see where it ended. So cautiously, she began to extend her magic through the massive path C'Thun's soul had left upon its death, searching for how far it drifted. Sara extended her magic as far as it could go, further and further, but with absolutely no success and soon she was forced to withdraw it. When she was done she fell to the ground and the staff clattered to the stone.

The crowd of mages and warlocks gasped, and Maria approached her, but Sara held up a hand. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Just pushed myself a little far." There was no reason for C'Thun's soul to have gotten so far from its body. Even having been dead for thirty years, she should've been able to at least find it if not revive it. The only explanation was that C'Thun had actively driven its soul impossibly far from its body. What did that mean?

She had a few guesses. The most likely one was that C'Thun was going to try and find some other world to torment, that it decided Azeroth was too much trouble, wasn't worth it, and so was off to find another planet entirely. If that was the case Sara didn't really know the Old God's fate. Whether its spirit haunted a new innocent world, or the Twisting Nether had torn the weakened Old God's ghost apart, it didn't matter.

As far as Azeroth was concerned, C'Thun was gone for good.

"I'm fine," she insisted again. "Thalnek, Alrinn, come here. I need your help to set up an array. You too, Fardol. Your part is the last after these two are done."

The high elf and gnome approached her, and she began to describe the magical array she needed set up around herself. It took the two mages a half hour of spell casting to get it done, but when they were finished a multifaceted negative feedback ritual circle had been conjured around her, its purple glow piercing the gloom of the Old God's lightless grave.

"Excellent. Fardol, I need you to consecrate the land between one and two and a half yards around me. Can you do that?"

"Oddly specific, but I can try," he admitted as he approached the ritual. Standing at its edge, he lifted a fist and enshrouded it with golden power, then slammed it to the ground after a short pause. Sara winced as a cloud of holy power blew outwards from him, but like she'd requested it didn't approach more than a yard to her. There. The ritual, combined with the holy ground, would keep anything horrible from getting to her from this next spell. She was ready.

Sara reached out her mental magic to C'Thun's brain.

The first thing she noticed was that the Old God's mind was absolutely _gargantuan._ Nothing else was expected, really, but _holy shit_ that was a giant brain. There was no spark of life in it, but the lack of decay meant the veritable rain forest of mind links were as intact as they were on the day the Liberality Confederacy killed C'Thun. She had absolutely no idea where to even begin. With humanoids, animals, there was a pattern. Their brains all worked more or less the same way. Brain stem, cortex, different locations for different processes. But an Old God? All Sara could do was guess, so guess she did. She reached out blindly, created a tentative mind reading link between her mind and -

* * *

**_Dead soil._ **

**_Sands._ **

**_Mortals inside._ **

**_Red skies._ **

**_Blood rivers._ **

**_Mortals fighting inside._ **

**_Injured inside._ **

**_Shattered aqir._ **

**_Oceanic depths._ **

**_Screams._ **

**_Mortal before it._ **

**_Walking mountains._ **

**_Clashing storms._ **

**_Darkness._ **

**_Metal skin._ **

**_Mortal with magic._ **

**_The smell of its own burning flesh._ **

**_Its first cast of an eye beam._ **

**_Mortals surrounding it._ **

**_Surrounding it._ **

**_Surrounding._ **

**_Abandon._ **

**_Try._ **

**_Mortal with magic._ **

**_Familiar magic._ **

**_Fly blown plains._ **

**_Very familiar magic._ **

**_World's roof._ **

**_Horrified screams laughing on the wind._ **

**_Snow mountains._ **

**_Prison of the usurpers._ **

**_Elaborate._ **

**_Giant._ **

**_Flawed._ **

**_Barely flawed._ **

**_Battling metal creatures from beyond._ **

**_Metal structures all around._ **

**_Metal soldiers guarding one._ **

**_Metal watchers guarding one._ **

**_Guarding one deep inside._ **

**_Guarding one inmate._ **

**_Inside._ **

**_Familiar magic._ **

**_Usurper prison._ **

**_The mortal has magic._ **

**_Familiar magic._ **

**_Usurper prison in the north._ **

**_Mortals killing it._ **

**_Black empires worshiping it._ **

**_Torturing in its name._ **

**_Mortal before it._ **

**_Mortal with -_ **

* * *

"SARA, STOP!" someone shouted. She gasped and felt her magic fly away as a counterspell collapsed around her. She almost made to stumble, but caught herself as she returned to reality. She was still in Ahn'Qiraj, with miles of stone perched above her. Blinking the visions out of her mind, she looked around.

"Oh shit," she whispered. The arcane runes around her sparked and popped, and the yellow cracks in the stone signifying consecrated land had turned bruise-purple. "What happened?"

"My consecration started ta turn desecrated, we stopped ya as quick as we could but they had some trouble gettin' a counterspell to stick with the ritual around ya."

"That's good, that's good. If it turned corrupted then it did its purpose. Better the magic go into the consecration than me." Swinging her arms back, Sara jumped out and over the defiled land and backed away from it, still holding her head. "I'm fine, I'm fine. It was a bit intense is all. Showed me a sort of slide show of... I don't really know. Went by so fast." That was a lie. It had gone by at a perfect rate for her to understand. She remembered every single vision that C'Thun's dead brain had shown her, even if they left her a little weak in the knees. "That's all our business in Ahn'Qiraj done. Katherine, please open us a portal back to Stormwind so we can start prepping for a visit to the Maelstrom."

The mage nodded. "Right away."

While the mage began casting, Sara collected all the data they'd collected and stored it in her pack. It must've been past midnight, but so close to C'Thun she felt like she could run a marathon. Within seconds Katherine finished opening the portal, carving a spherical tear in space-time to the Wizard's Sanctum. Everyone began to vanish into it one by one, until Sara was alone with Leira, Fardol, and C'Thun.

"So," she said.

"I have my own hearthstone," Fardol said as he took out a small white rock engraved with a blue swirl. "It's been a pleasure keepin' ya safe Miss Smithers, but do try ta keep caution whenever ya end up goin' to the other Old Gods. Ya saw what almost happened here, after all." He started rubbing the hearthstone, which immediately began to glow green. After exactly ten seconds he vanished with a clap of thunder, leaving only a series of blue spheres in the air that faded as soon as she saw them.

"I have a hearthstone too," Leira said, taking it out. "I have to get back to the Chimes, tell them about the Hammer. Probably go fight the Legion too, heh. Show those demons who's boss."

"Yeah," Sara said, glancing at the hungry portal behind her. "Leira are... we okay?" she asked hesitantly, bowing her head in fear of the answer.

The draenei sighed. "I don't know Sara. This is a lot to take in. I mean it's... _faceless_ magic. Talk to you later, I just need to think about this." The warrior began to rub her own hearthstone and promptly vanished, leaving Sara alone with the monster.

"Yeah," she whispered to herself. "I guess it is a lot." She turned to the portal. "Well, here goes nothing." She began walking to it, replaying C'Thun's visions in her mind. A lot of it was a jumbled mess of its time ruling Azeroth and its time imprisoned, but something stuck out to her. The usurper prison in the north, with a single inmate. There was only one place that could be, and it didn't fit with the rest of its dim memories.

C'Thun had shown her Ulduar.


	14. Chapter 13: Put to Use

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

The portal loomed before her, and despite the thoughts of Ulduar consuming her mind she didn't delay in entering it. Immediately the pale blue color wrapped around her like a warm bath and submerged her just like one. It felt like she was falling, falling faster than should've been possible, and then something _jerked_ her upwards. Like rain, the portal's streaking blue and white washed down from around her.

Sara landed with a grunt inside the Wizard's Sanctum, stumbling once. Her legs still hurt, a persistent ache throbbing in them despite the rejuvenating spell Leira had cast on her. Maybe her healing spell needed some more time to do its work.

The portal had brought Sara to a relatively small portion of the Wizard's Sanctum, not much more than a tunnel with a frame-contained sea green portal on either end that led to the rest of the tower. Pushed against the walls were shelves filled with higher-level magical tomes and benches containing various alchemical mixtures, with mages attending to them. What _really_ caught her interest though, was the fact that the twelve people who'd come through not a minute before had all mysteriously vanished.

She frowned. They couldn't have just left, could they? They were still on an expedition and the next stage of their journey was the Maelstrom. Though maybe she should go to Ulduar first...

Sara wasn't given any more time to wonder where everyone else had gone, because a high elf dressed in the well-embroidered archmage robes approached her, a frown on her ruby lips. "Miss Smithers I presume?"

Oh no. "Yes, what is it?" she asked, curious. "Where is everyone else? I wasn't that far behind them, was I?"

" _About_ that," she said in a voice as sickening sweet as honey. "We've been waiting on you for a few weeks now." Her heart began to race. She had a few ideas as to what was going on. Especially since now that she looked closer, there was a man leaning against one of the portal frames in casual clothes, but he was far too muscular and tanned to be a spellcaster. "It's no fault of your own understand, but your expedition was rather unfortunately timed and we've only now been able to get in contact with you for your assignment."

Her throat clenched. No. It couldn't be. Not when she'd _just_ gotten - "Assignment?" she squeaked, forcing as much meekness into her posture as possible.

"Yes." The high elf reached into one of her robe's pockets and pulled out a sheet of paper, covered in heavy amounts of writing. Sara snatched it away and began running her eyes over it furiously, committing it to memory. "Not just for you but for the others you've brought with you. Speaking of which, I believe you left with twice as many?" Sara was about to answer, but the archmage cut her off. "Well given where you've been, I can assume you ran into some difficulties with the natives. My condolences. Anyway I'm getting off topic. Magister Smithers, by the royal Battlemage Declaration you are hereby conscripted into the Alliance armed forces to assist in hostilities against the Burning Legion until such time as their invasion has been successfully repelled."

Her stomach dropped like a stone. No. No, no no no this wasn't - "T-That's a bad idea," she said, mustering as much strength as she could. "I have no endurance, no cardio, no combat training, there's no way I would be of any assistance and my research into the Old Gods is far more - "

Again, the archmage cut her off. "I understand you are eager to complete your thesis, but understand we are not ending your trip, merely suspending it until the Legion is repelled. It doesn't matter if we know how to undo the Old Gods' spell if Kil'jaeden kills us all anyway, I'm sure you understand. Especially given the... _difficulties_ you encountered in Silithus." Sara struggled not to let her surprise show. She knew about the Hammer? Who had told her?! "As for lacking training, I will let Officer Gurkins explain to you your role." She turned around and nodded to him. "Officer. I need to take my leave. There's still much paperwork for me to do, however well timed your reappearance was."

Sara stood there with an open mouth as the elven woman threw a hand in the air, vanishing with a flash of arcane light. The man leaning against the portal briskly approached her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Miss Smithers," he said. "Please relax. Walk with me." She did, following him through the frame held portal - technically it wasn't a portal but everyone called it that - and into the core of the Wizard's Sanctum. He led her outside and down the long spiral ramp, then along the stone streets.

"I imagine this is a shock to you," he said as they passed a few stores.

"A little. Sir, I must insist this is a very grave error. I'm no good in a fight." That wasn't even that much of a lie, considering how she'd spent the entire fight in Ahn'Qiraj either suppressed or getting smacked around by an obsidian destroyer. "My talents would be much better put to work heading to Ulduar, or Pandaria."

"Your talents, I'd like to speak of those." The hairs on her neck stood up. Precisely how much did 'Officer Gurkins' know about her _talents?_ "I've read your profile, I'm extremely impressed. Runner-up of the Mage Quarter Dueling Club, _Champion_ of the Mage Quarter Dueling Club, and ran a little business curing people of procrastination with your magic. You've had the Quarter's eyes on you since you were seven and have progressed through your classes with flying colors, even graduating into your Magister title two years early. Your magical power, mana pool, and magic resistance are off the charts. This is all remarkably impressive, and you also must realize we in the Stormwind Armed Forces understand that spellcasters don't get much time to hone the physical aspect of your bodies, you're too busy training the magical side." He winked. "I'm not going to be expecting you to run suicides or anything, Sara. Can I call you Sara?" Unsure of what to do, she nodded.

"Sara it is then," he continued. "However, there's something else that _really_ got my attention." _Don't be my magic signature,_ she prayed. _Don't be my magic signature, don't be -_ "When you were in the second grade in your hometown, you did a little something that caught Stormwind's attention. You were allowed to come here and train free of charge in hopes of your powers being of great use to the Alliance and to Azeroth." Oh great. He was trying to _guilt trip_ her, make her feel 'indebted' to the Alliance for her free ride.

She wasn't going to let him manipulate her so easily. Steeling herself, she straightened her back and stared him in the eyes. "You mean when I resurrected the frog. Sir, with all due respect it's just a frog." Even though she knew what was going on, Sara wasn't sure what to do. There were too many people around for her to warp his mind into forgetting all about her. She took a deep breath and let it out. "But you're hoping I can resurrect people now, that I can resurrect fallen soldiers. Am I correct?"

He smirked. "Right you are Sara. If your abilities have truly progressed so far, then having you on board would be immensely valuable. Soldiers who are killed in action can come back into the fight, good as new. Medical supplies that are spent on the gravely and terminally wounded can be spared for those less harmed. If we find any mortal supporters of the Legion, they can be revived and interrogated."

Her throat tightened. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

He sighed, suddenly appearing to age rapidly. "I wish you wouldn't think of it like that. Aiding the Alliance in defense of this world is a great honor. But no, you don't have a choice. Your orders are to be back in the Wizard's Sanctum by midnight tonight. Take the time to pack and say goodbyes to anyone in Stormwind." He winked. "Between you and me, I recommend a good book and a toothbrush. There'll be a portal there to pick you up and send you to Nethergarde Keep, where you'll report to Officer Gina Peaceblossom. She's the one currently in charge of the medics there. You'll be operating closely under her given your... _unique_ abilities."

Suppressing a twitch in her eye, Sara ground her teeth together. "Yes, sir. I'll be headed to my apartment to start packing." The leather bag on her back suddenly felt far too heavy to carry.

"Go, and Light be with you."

Sara left Gurkins behind and raced to her apartment complex, her stomach churning uneasily in her gut. Once inside she raced up the stairs and into the suite, then into her room. She slammed into the door, forgetting she'd locked it, then opened it with her key and stumbled inside her room, slamming it behind her.

Everything was exactly like she'd left it, albeit with a little more dust. There was her bed, with the sheets made. Her closet, slammed shut. Her desk, covered in papers where she'd plotted out her expedition - all for naught - with pencils both broken and whole littering the floor around it. With weary shoulders she sloughed off her bag and let the conscription paper flutter to the floor. Throwing herself onto her bed, Sara twisted around and brought her face into the pillow where she screamed profanities for as long as the air in her lungs would let her.

_Everything was going wrong!_ All at once too! First it was the Legion invading, then it was Higris attacking, then her discovering Fardol had gone around her back, and then when she'd gotten so close to C'Thun and hopefully to learning why she had faceless magic, the Old God's dead brain had just said 'Hah no, you need to go to Ulduar for that' and now she was being forced to go to the damned _Blasted Lands?!_ Nothing about the situation was okay!

Okay. Calm. She need to calm down.

Flipping over onto her back, Sara took a deep breath and began to sort things. Alright, first things first. She'd gotten a tremendous amount of data from the trip to C'Thun. It was all written into her notepad and she had that with her. She had lost nothing. Second, everyone she had with her was gone. Leira and Fardol were off to fight the Legion, as were the mages and warlocks she'd brought with her. The Hammer had been chased off by the qiraji and were probably in cocoons or whatever those bugs did.

Third, she had been conscripted into the Alliance army to serve as a medic/reviver. She had until midnight to prepare to go to the Blasted Lands...

... or until midnight to run away and go to Ulduar on her own.

Sara rolled off her bed and fell onto the floor with a yelp, but pulled herself up and scrambled to her desk. She leaned down and opened the drawers and sure enough, there it was. The little blue gem she had enchanted with her own custom-made distraction spell. Sara reached in an pulled it out, turning it over and over in her hands as she sat on the floor.

It would be so easy. _Pathetically_ easy. She hadn't considered all this little gem could do back when her only goal was to get her hands on her magic signature. With this she could get anywhere, so long as there were no magic wards. Nobody would be able to stop her. She'd stow away on the next boat to Northrend and be in the Storm Peaks by next month, winter be damned. She'd be hunted for being a deserter but so what? Nobody would find her and even if they did, with her little gem they wouldn't notice her if they were standing right next to her. And nobody knew of its existence, so nobody would think to create countermeasures for it.

All she had to do was slip it into her pocket and activate it. Then she was free to go to Ulduar at her own leisure. Let those other losers deal with the demons. She had no interest in lending her magic to the cause and resurrecting soldiers left and right. Her magic was much better used blasting demons anyway since resurrection cost _so much_ mana and those idiots would probably just get themselves killed again at the earliest opportunity. She had no interest in going to Nethergarde to battle the Legion and keep them from advancing north into the Swamp of Sorrows, into Duskwood, into Elwynn, into Greenvale...

Had Greenvale evacuated? Odds were they hadn't since the Blasted Lands were still some distance away. And really, if she didn't go help in Nethergarde then there was no way they'd be able to hold on. Maybe even with her help they wouldn't, but at least Sara would be able to delay the Legion and that might just be enough for her parents to get out in time, if worst came to worst.

She could desert the Alliance and make a break for Ulduar, but could she really live with herself if doing so put her parents in danger?

Clenching a fist around her gem, she let a frustrated growl escape her throat and then began to pack for the Blasted Lands. She put away clothes she wouldn't mind getting ruined by sand and heat. Her notepad and a pen. Her gem, obviously was stored away in her pocket and she was not going to let _anyone_ find it. Hmm, though maybe her pocket wasn't a good idea. She opened her notepad and, at the very back, used her magic to carve a little crevice in the paper and popped the blue crystal inside. Nobody would think to look for it there.

Damn it. And it was already afternoon too, due to the time zones. How much time did she have until midnight? Not enough. Damn it all she didn't want to go to Nethergarde but she didn't have a choice. Though, at the very least she'd be getting a lot of practice with her resurrection magic.

She should've seen it coming, honestly. She'd been accepted to the Mage Quarter because she had demonstrated her ability to bring the dead back to life. It was only a matter of time before people came poking and prodding her to bring people back. Loved ones, pets, her talents could go to much worse use than bringing back fighting soldiers.

Sara finished packing her belongings and went out for a late dinner at the Blue Recluse. That ate up another two hours, and she found herself again in her room with nothing to do for another three hours. She took out her notepad and began flipping through the data, interpreting it.

Opening her desk's top drawer, she pulled out a few sheets of graph paper and began. First things first, ley line friction as they approached C'Thun. They'd only traveled there in a relatively straight line, so they didn't have completely conclusive data, but it seemed there was a sort of 'pinch' in the ley lines beneath C'Thun. Readings from under the Old God confirmed they were being funneled upwards through a series of incredibly subtle yet complicated spells. She took a few new sheets of paper out and began writing the details of those spells that she could interpret. Unfortunately the spell was utterly beyond her ability to comprehend, so she forced herself to instead write down an approximation of it. However, the details of the spell and the subtle hints as to its design indicated the spell was of Titan make rather than Old God creation. There was no reason for C'Thun to create a spell with the line 'imprison single entity of great power' after all.

She spent the rest of her time analyzing the data. Most important was graphing C'Thun's own magical signature. Like the faceless and Sara alike, C'Thun's magic signature formed rising and sharply-falling triangles, which grew in size one after another until at one point shrinking back down and repeating, a sawtooth pattern. Like the faceless and Sara, the third axis's colors were in the high range, and like both of theirs the fourth axis was seemingly random, though C'Thun's values were closer to Sara's than the faceless.

She had more in common with an Old God than with the faceless ones. That was worrying.

Propping her elbows on the desk, Sara rested her head in her hands and sighed.

Great. So she didn't have faceless magic, she had full-blown Old God magic. And C'Thun had expressly shown her Ulduar, and she had death magic. It wasn't hard to figure out that somehow, somewhy, she had some connection to Yogg-Saron. But _what?_ And why? The only way she could figure out was by going to Ulduar, but she'd made her mind up to go to Nethergarde because if she didn't _her parents were probably going to die!_ This was all happening so quickly and honestly it wasn't the sort of surprise she appreciated.

Oh well. Nothing she could do, and it was close to midnight so she needed to get moving. Stuffing her research back inside her leather bag, she hoisted it onto her back and left, locking the door behind her. A few flights of stairs later and she stood outside in the dead of night. The moons hung heavy in the sky, but there were too many lanterns glowing for her to see anything but the brightest of stars. Already, she missed the clear skies of Silithus. Practically on muscle memory, Sara headed towards the towering Wizard's Sanctum at the heart of the Mage Quarter. She took a good look at all the passing houses and stores as she walked, the innumerable blades of grass and cracked stones of the path.

Who knew when she'd be able to see them again?

Up the familiar spiral ramp, through the shimmering portal again, and into the tunnel room again. This time however it was far more crowded than before. The same dozen people she had returned with were already there, standing in three rows of four. In front of them was the same nameless archmage that had welcomed Sara back to Stormwind, as well as Gurkins. In between them roared a three yard tall, hungry looking portal with the faintest glimmers of a castle, of red stone, within its depths.

Standing at the back, Maria glanced over at her. "So Sara, I'm guessing you're pretty upset about this?" she asked innocently.

"Shut up."

"That's a yes then. Relax, it's all going to be fine. We're not going to be like, wading down and fighting with swords. We're the ones who stand in the back setting stuff on fire." Maria suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Or... whatever it is your magic does."

She crossed her arms and huffed as Gurkins raised his voice. She tuned out as the idiot barked orders at the other mages and warlocks. She had her assignment in paper, she already knew where she was going to go. Blah blah Nethergarde Infirmary blah blah Gina Peaceblossom. Got it. It wasn't brain surgery. According to her internal clock though, she'd been going over day without sleep, and she was starting to feel it by the way a nauseous pit settled in her stomach. After a few minutes of him explaining in more detail what was going on, he ordered them through the portal. Like a river flowing downhill everyone filed through, entering the portal one after another. Maria gave her a nervous grin before vanishing, and then it was Sara's turn.

She took a deep breath. She could still go. All Sara had to do was let loose a shadow nova and kill the Officer and Archmage while they were down. Then activate the gem still with her, and run.

Sara did none of those things, and instead mechanically approached the portal. There was nothing for her to worry about, she reasoned. All she had to do was keep her shadow barrier up twenty four seven, and nothing would hurt her.

Again, the portal's shimmering light slammed shut around her, throwing her down an invisible pit of roaring power. Then just like before, the flowing lights of the Twisting Nether fell down from around her and Sara landed hard in the Blasted Lands, already throwing up a green magic shell around herself.

Heat instantly blasted her face and withered at her skin. She blinked and looked around. The ground beneath her was bare and ragged stone, colored like rust. The air wasn't as bereft of moisture as it had been in Silithus, but there was a little _tang_ in the breeze she couldn't quite place. All around her, Nethergarde Keep sprung up. Towering stone walls encased her on all sides, though looking closely she noticed that some portions of the wall were much newer than others, and in still other places were gaping holes into the outer world being patched up by furious masons.

Not just in the walls either. All around Sara were massive, scorched craters blown into the ground, most only half filled in. The Legion was attacking Nethergarde, so were those _infernal_ craters? Could her shadowy barrier withstand a hit like that? She glanced to the sky and relaxed when she saw there was no smoke trailing through the sky.

Nethergarde Keep had three main structures. Two of those were castle-like barracks on either end of the keep and between them, pushed near the back, was a wizard's tower. Various smaller structures dotted the area to take up the space. A forge. A stable. A gryphon master's roost, though there was no master nor were there any gryphons about from what she could tell. Sara had arrived in the middle of the keep facing away from its gates, and already the others were headed to the left barracks.

Sara however, turned right with not even a goodbye to the others. They certainly were not alone either, as soldiers and masons and many more people whose occupations she couldn't identify meandered around on some pointless tasks, filling the air with the white noise of their inane chattering. As she approached the keep she swallowed the lump in her throat, then stepped onto the white bricks leading into it. The portcullis was up, and she didn't even consider it might slam down on top of her. She had her barrier for that anyway.

Inside torches lit the scene instead of the moons. Sara pressed deeper, turning a few corners and getting lost a few times as she searched for 'Gina Peaceblossom'. Her bag still on her back, Sara peeked into room after room, went up and down stairs. Once or twice she had to be turned around from places where the injured rested by shushing medics, who also helped steer her in the right direction.

After about half an hour of hopeless wandering, she found Gina Peaceblossom doing paperwork in what Sara could only describe as a large closet. There were no windows, and the walls had nails hammered into them with white robes hanging from each. The ground was covered in countless sheets of paper, but to her dismay the sheets were organized into piles. Some of the piles were knee high. Gina herself was clad in white form-hugging robes with blue trims that fell to the ground. The woman was hunched over a desk facing away from Sara, a pencil scribbling furiously onto some more paperwork. Despite the abominable creak the door made when Sara opened it, she remained unresponsive.

"Gina Peaceblossom?" she asked.

"BY THE LIGHT!" the woman shouted, throwing herself back and upending the chair with a calamitous slam. Sara smirked as the redheaded woman smacked into the ground and sent her carefully arranged stacks of paper flying, but then she adopted a concerned look.

"Um, I'm sorry. I knocked but you were kinda in your own world." Sara hadn't knocked. "I am Magister Sara Smithers, I was told to report to you to help with the injured and dead."

Peaceblossom collected herself and righted the chair. "Phew. Right, sorry about that. Let me think..." She closed her eyes for a moment and nodded. "Ah yes, the wonder girl. So can you actually bring back the dead or are you just blowing smoke out of your ass?"

Was this woman _doubting_ her? "I can. Though the longer someone's been dead, and the larger they are, the harder it is." Sara handed over the papers she'd carried with her, confirming she was who she said she was.

Peaceblossom grabbed it, scanned it quickly, then nodded. "I'm still busy here, but it's paramount that we get you started right away. We've been taking on a lot of casualties and if you can relieve even some of the pressure it'd be great."

Sara scoffed in her head. Yeah. 'Great'.

Peaceblossom pushed past her and motioned for her to follow. The older woman began to explain on the way. "You don't have any formal medicinal training, so we certainly can't have you with the wounded. The main infirmiry's over by the west wing of these barracks, it's where everyone we think will make it is kept. The east wing... I'm sure you can guess. There's a staff for you there so you don't over channel, I'll be watching over your first few procedures to make you you're the real deal. It's nothing personal but I do need to write down what you're doing. Mind explaining the process to me for future reference?"

She sighed. She'd explained it to Leira before when they were kids, but the difference was that back then she'd actually wanted to and wasn't being forced to against her will in some forsaken wasteland invaded by demons -

"Miss Smithers?" Gina asked as they went up some steps.

"Oh, right. Sorry," she said with an airy laugh. "What happens is that when someone dies, their soul starts to sort of drift from their bodies, further away over time. So what I do is I reach in with my magic and grab their soul, pull it back into their body, fix up their body and bam, back to life. I... can't exactly do the 'fixing their body' thing outside of resurrection though. It's tied to the process of bringing back the soul."

"I see. So you can just move someone's soul back... just like that? Pretty impressive." They arrived at a heavy metal door. "Now Sara I need to warn you, some of the people here are pretty... grisly. Think you can handle it?"

"I'll be fine." She didn't add that she'd been torturing and killing animals in creative ways since she was two. Sara had a feeling that wouldn't go over well.

"If you say so, just brace yourself." Peaceblossom pushed open the door and Sara followed her into the room filled with the dead and dying.

The smell of death made her sniff once, and Sara's eyes meandered left and right. The room was brightly, almost cheerfully, lit with lamps. Cots lined the walls with white linen sheets and gryphon down pillows. Stretching back were about fifteen cots on either side. Combined with a few more at the very back, Sara countered thirty-four beds, of which only five weren't currently occupied.

"Normally we don't let our soldiers stay here, and bury them as soon as possible," Gina explained as she took a staff off the wall and tossed it to Sara. "Not good for morale, you understand. But if you're here..."

She grabbed the staff and looked it over. It was an impressive staff, she had to give it that. Probably the best she'd ever held. Sara couldn't quite identify the steely blue material making up the shaft, but she suspected some blend of arcanite and another metal. The head of the staff, rather than a single focusing gem, branched out like a three leaf clover with each prong holding a further three emerald shards. It was heavier than what she was used to, but just holding it she could feel the staff working to keep the strain of magic off her own body. She could _certainly_ work with this.

"Who's the most recently dead? I'll bring them back first, start easy and work my way up."

"Not the oldest dead? If what you're saying and it gets harder with time..."

"It takes days for it to get harder, and if I strain myself too hard on them I'll spend too long regaining mana to help the more recently dead. I understand you're my superior but please Gina, I know what I'm doing."

Peaceblossom looked her dead in the eyes for a few moments, green orbs searching Sara's own brown eyes. Finally Gina nodded. "Well I suppose you're the expert. Here." She walked over to one of the closer cadavers. The body was of a dwarven woman, with a rather nasty looking gut wound wrapped up. She didn't wear anything beyond a snow white medical blouse and color was just beginning to fade from her skin. "Sergeant Tina Goldenstout. Doomguard got her just a few hours ago. Whenever you're ready, work your magic."

Sara nodded and stepped back. The staff in her right hand, she held up her left and began casting. Purple-black-green magic swirled about her hands, then condensed into violet, and then finally to sickly green light as she reached into the dwarf's body. The soldier's soul hadn't gotten far yet, so Sara grasped it and began tugging it back with all due haste. Green fog streamed from the body as she crammed the soul back in, and then with a final flash of magic she lifted her left hand to the ceiling and mended the wounds.

'Tina' sputtered to life with a surprised jerk, nearly falling off the cot. Gina was there in a moment, a hand on her chest. "Sergeant, sergeant relax. You're fine."

"What happened ta me?" she asked. "I thought I was a goner!"

"You were, but Miss Smithers here managed to perform a resurrection. You weren't gone for too long, just a few hours."

"Wait... hours? Isn't the window for resurrection mere seconds?" The dwarf fixed her with a steely glare which Sara gladly returned. Then, the short woman nodded and laughed. "Haha, well I'm not one ta question a good thing." She pressed a hand to her head, looking suddenly confused. "I was... floating somewhere. It was so bright and I swore I saw naaru all around me... huh. Ah well, better get out there to help with - "

"Hang on sergeant, I just need to ask a few questions to make sure you're fine. You _were_ recently dead after all."

"Eh, sure enough."

Gina ran Tina through a series of medical questions that Sara couldn't make heads or tails of. Headaches, dizziness, the sort of questions she'd expect to be given to someone with a concussion, not someone who'd just been dead. Eventually, Gina relented and gave Tina a clean bill of health.

"Told ya I felt dandy!" She hopped off the cot. "Thanks a bunch for bringin' me back Sara, I owe ya one."

"I'm sure you do," she muttered to herself, glancing sideways

"Pardon?" the dwarf asked.

"Nothing, nothing," she reassured. "Anyway Miss Peaceblossom, I think I should get to the next resurrection. Who is it?"

The older woman nodded, looking fairly impressed. "Over here. Took a fel cannon blast to the head, never knew what hit him. Think you can do it a second time?"

"No problem," she said as she looked down at the night elf man and started up the magic again.

Then when he was revived and had the situation explained, she went to the next corpse and revived them.

And again.

And again.

_And again._

Eventually the people she brought back had been dead for days, and each one took more and more out of her mana pool than the one before. It was on the eighth person, who'd been gone for four days from a felguard axe across the throat, that she reached the limit of her magic.

The moment the dead woman came back to life coughing and screaming, her staff clattered to the ground and her legs gave out. Sara stumbled backwards and rested her body against one of the empty cots, breathing heavily. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she insisted as she pulled herself back up, trying to clear the black spots from her vision. "Just running out of mana. Probably the last one I can do for a while." She could already feel the tickle on her throat as her body began to convert water into raw magical energy. She wondered where she could get something to drink?

Peaceblossom pulled away from the woman and approached Sara. "I figured this might happen eventually, so I came prepared." Peaceblossom leaned over and Sara noticed there was actually a cabinet behind her, sunken into the wall. Gina opened the metal door and Sara's eyes widened. Inside were wide-bottomed vials filled to the brim with some viscous blue liquid. Mana potions?

Gina took one out and handed it to Sara, uncorking it with her thumb as she did. "Here you go, this should get you back up."

Sara sighed. "Well... there's still twenty-one people left to revive. Bottoms up." She raised the glass tube to her lips and tilted up. The liquid slid down into her mouth as she chugged, tasting like blackberries but with the same sharp, nauseating flavor that all medicines seemed to share with each other. She held her gag reflex back as the last of the mana potion slid into her stomach, and then she pulled away from the potion with a cough. "Ugh." As awful as that was, she could already feel her thirst fading away and her mana pool filling up. The spots in her vision were gone.

Gina clapped, and behind her the woman Sara her resurrected made tracks out of the room filled with dead bodies. "Excellent! I've gotten all I need and you know about the mana potions. I have to go back and fill out more forms, you keep working here and bring back as many people as you can. I'll send someone to keep you company, and keep you from passing out. Just a word of caution though, you're probably going to get more people brought in here as you work. Never a dull moment here in the Blasted Lands. Nope, never a dull moment."

Peaceblossom scurried out of the room, leaving Sara with her staff, forty nine mana potions, and twenty-one cold bodies. She looked around at the eight cots she'd cleared, and remembered that those people had all been dead relatively _recently._ Everyone else had been dead for longer, and people were still dying, and would _keep_ dying for the foreseeable future. Bile rose in her throat and her thoughts wandered to the notebook she'd brought and the distraction gem it held.

"Should've gone to Northrend when I had the chance," she muttered.


	15. Chapter 14: Worries Come to Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Fardol Brighthammer

He ducked, and the training dummy's sword arm flew overhead. He stood back up and raised the shield in his left hand, blocking the wooden shield of the dummy as it spun back around.

"Hru!" he grunted, smacking the sword away with his mace and ducking below the shield slam. He blocked the returning sword, raised his mace to block the shield, rinse and repeat.

If he wanted to test his skills he'd attach something really punishing to the training dummies, or go against several at once, probably both. This wasn't to test skills however, this was just endurance. And after an hour of fighting the dummy in his heavy plate, Fardol really felt the burn.

Whack! Fwap! Thud!

He wasn't the only one in the room, either. Fannah wailed away at a training dummy with her sword. Alex stood at a distance and launched frostfire bolts one after another with lethal precision. Trinkle herself didn't do anything, but the gnome let her felguard work out its demonic frustrations on the dummies. The air was filled with hissing magic, grunts of effort, and the click-clack-thud of the dummies spinning around.

Fardol worked himself for another twenty minutes before deciding to call it quits. Minnah was probably back from her meeting with the Dragon Aspects soon, so he needed to go catch her _pronto_ before she vanished again. Jumping back from the spinning dummy, Fardol carefully made his way to the edge of the ring, making sure not to get in anyone's way. Once at a safe distance, he began the long, arduous process of stripping his armor from his sweaty, aching body. Muscles twitching furiously beneath his skin, Fardol hefted his armor in his hands and left.

He took a few lefts and came across Paradox's armory, a storage room lined with chest after chest. He went and found his and, with one foot, opened it up to dump his armor in, followed by his mace. Once those were gone, he reached down and pulled a waterskin from the same chest and drained it in record time before replacing it. He wiped his mouth with a hand, ignoring the stray drops on his precious beard, and turned back around.

Paradox's guild hall was located in the Military Quarter of Ironforge, and while it was far from where they were fighting in Northrend, portals could solve that easily enough. The familiar stone ceilings of home arched overhead; everything about Ironforge was dandy. Good luck to the Legion in breaking into Ironforge, hah! The hall wasn't even a complex maze. Everything was clearly structured and ordered out. Training here, resources here, meetings here, so on and so forth. Everything had a place and everything was in its place. Well, except for _him._ His place was up in Northrend, keeping the attention of massive demons so they wouldn't trample his less resilient guildmates. Instead he was... in the Eastern Kingdoms fighting straw and wood.

Damn it all.

But perhaps it was for the best. He had to find Minnah, pronto. So he went towards where she should've been returning from the Dragonblight, in the guild's main hall.

Paradox's central hall was a thing o' beauty. Marble pillars, maps of Azeroth, tables filled with all sorts of recipes and theories with brilliant people pouring over them. In a world constantly threatened by some eldritch beast, or space demons, or just regular armies, Paradox was a solid rock upon which anyone could depend to get the job done. Well... so was the Liberality Confederacy, and it was somewhat of a friendly competition between them at this point. Even if the L.C. lead by a _wide_ margin.

Still, the fact that the corridor to the meeting hall had the mounted skull of the dragon Sartharion over it was testament to the skill of his guild.

Pushing past a few other members of his guild, including the stupid taller ones, Fardol finally managed to catch a glimpse of Minnah's pink pigtails bouncing in the air.

"Minnah!" he said in a voice just shy of a shout. The gnome paused and turned to face him, raising an equally pink eyebrow and waiting for him. Fardol pushed next to her and nodded respectfully. Minnah stood a head shorter than him, as gnomes often did, and at the moment was dressed in a suit with their tabard laid over it. "Glad I could catch ya. Need ta talk with ya."

"I'm busy right now Fardol, can we walk and talk?"

He shrugged and followed after her when she started walking. "You're the boss, sure."

"Excellent." She held up a stack of papers. "I need to get these filed pronto, the Dragon Aspects had a lot of interesting news."

"What sort of interesting news? Things goin' alright up there?"

She shook her head and sighed. "Afraid not. Selnek's raid has been having difficulty pushing into Wintergrasp with all the fel cannons and the dragons are too tied up with these fel wyrm... things. Sorry you couldn't go on the raid by the way, but you were in Kalimdor trailing that warlock and we had no way of contacting you. I'll need to invent something for that," she said, finishing with a mutter.

"Yeah Minnah, _about_ that warlock. It's kinda why I wanted to talk with ya."

They arrived at Minnah's office, and Fardol shut the door behind them. The gnome hopped over to behind her gray desk and opened a seemingly random folder to put the papers in. "What about her? Please, sit," she said, gesturing to a lovely seat with a red cushion.

He took the seat. "Thank ye. So this warlock. She was heading to Silithus with a bunch o' other mages and warlocks to try and learn about the Old Gods. Something about findin' a way to counter whatever's keeping them linked with Azeroth."

Minnah rested an elbow on her gnome-sized desk and plopped her chin in it, tapping her fingers against her head. "Hmm, I seem to recall..." She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them. "Oh right! Sara Smithers yes? She got deployed to the Blasted Lands three days ago as some sort of resurrector. So again, what about her?"

"Half of the people following her were Twilight cultists," he said gravely. "And she knew. On the boat she told me about how they ended up coming, and she did it using telepathy. It gets worse. The magic she used to make it happen was faceless magic, Minnah. Actual, Light-smite-me-for-lying faceless magic. And she was going to go within spittin' distance of C'Thun, with a dozen Twilight cultists at her back. Can ya see the problem?" Fardol continued his explanation of what happened while he followed Sara. Talking with her non-cultist followers. Learning about Leira but being unable to speak with her. Sara's refusal to actually _do_ anything about the Hammer until they attacked them, and what happened once they were done with C'Thun's corpse.

By the end Minnah had pulled her head up and had both elbows up, fingers locked together. "I see. So you're saying Sara can wield Old God magic, but beyond having what is approximately antisocial personality disorder, she shows no sign of corruption?"

"It gets worse. Ya know how she's in the Alliance army to revive soldiers? She's the real deal. Brought back half a dozen or so people minutes after dying, no sweat. Minnah, she doesn't just have Old God magic. She has Old God magic and _death_ magic, and I looked into her background. She was born with this stuff. She's been bringin' back small critters since she was a wee lass and has been getting stronger since. The Archmages don't do anything because she hasn't done anything _provably_ wrong, but I have a nasty feeling I know what's goin' on with her. There's only one known Old God associated with death, and her time of birth is awfully close to when the L.C. killed - "

Minnah cut him off with a hand motion. "Okay Fardol listen. You're one of our best. You can tank a hit like nobody's business, you're smart, you're a pleasure to have around, you're in this guild for very good reason." Oh boy. "I've never had reason to doubt your word before but this? This is really stretching it. Do you have any idea how grave this sort of accusation is? You're accusing a young Magister of being the reincarnation of _Yogg-Saron._ 'Rise from the earth and unmake this world, beast with a thousand maws, innumerable eons of unfathomable darkness' Yogg-Saron."

"If the shoe fits," he said simply.

"Okay look. Fardol, let's consider this. Let's say you're right, and that I believe you. Sara Smithers is the Old God of Death reborn and is inhabiting a mortal body, biding her time to - "

"Pardon me, but I actually don't think _she_ knows. She wasn't making a beeline for Ulduar, she was going to Silithus. Maybe there's some convoluted reason to go to C'Thun first, but I doubt she knows what she is any more than the fact that she has Old God powers."

"Okay, then the Old God of Death reborn in a mortal body, just walking around in the Blasted Lands, behind Alliance lines, unrestrained. What exactly do you want me to do about it, hmm?" He opened his mouth, but fell silent. He had admittedly not thought so far ahead. "So we go ahead, prove she's an Old God and what? She isn't turning against us. She's not infiltrating Stormwind Keep and talking King Anduin into slitting his own throat. She's certainly not aiding the Legion. She's just sitting in the Blasted Lands, apparently resurrecting soldiers, just like she's been told to. What can I do, send a party down there to bash her head in while she's asleep? Recruit her into our ranks when every able body is needed there and we're holding on by ourselves? What exactly are you expecting, Fardol?"

He frowned. "I'm not entirely sure myself, but she needs some kind of check on her. She's going around throwing Old God magic around willy-nilly, that's not something we can just let happen!"

"Need I remind you how many people we have in _our own ranks,_ who casually summon the very monsters we're up against, more who wield their own magics, and still others that channel the power of the void and just toss it around, using it to strengthen your own teammates? To keep them going?" He frowned. "If Sara's powers are doing no harm then they aren't doing any harm. I get it, you're a paladin, Holy Light and everything, but what did it do? Make you uncomfortable I'm guessing. If that's the worst Sara's magic has done in over two decades, then I think we can wait a few more months. And that's all assuming she really _is_ what you say! You are accusing someone of being an Old God - not using their magic, actually being one - because of a hunch. So someone's born using faceless magic. Stranger things have happened on Azeroth."

Fardol had the decency to look embarrassed at her conclusion. "I know, I know, it sounds silly when ya put it like that. But the shoe still fits. She uses Old God magic, she resurrects the dead, and now that I think about it none of them qiraji were even thinkin' about attacking her."

"So you have three facts, though I hesitate to call them such, that may have other causes, so you just jump straight to 'Nope, she's an Old God'. Listen I believe you when you say she has Old God magic, and all that other stuff, but this is a pretty serious claim. Not to mention we can't exactly justify removing her right now unless she starts helping the Legion." She sighed. "Look I'm not going to just drop this, alright? This is something that bears looking into, not just jumping into it and shouting 'Hey you! With the reviving powers!'. On the off chance that you're right, it's extremely important to make sure Sara doesn't experience a... we'll call it a relapse. I'll think of something Fardol. Now, is there anything else I can help you with?"

He sighed. "No, that was it. Just please make sure Sara doesn't do anything too... horrible while she's down there. Dreadmaul and Nethergarde don't need an Old God mind controlling everyone behind their lines with the Legion pounding them at the same time."

"I'll figure something out," she said dryly. "Now could you please leave? I wasn't lying when I said I have a lot to do, and you've just given me even more to worry about." Minnah winked, and Fardol sighed.

"Very well. Stay safe." He turned around and left his guild leader's office.

"Oh and Fardol?" she asked right before he could close the door. He looked back at the gnome curiously. "No going off on your own to chase after Sara. I mean it, you're in the next group to retake Wintergrasp."

He nodded, a little hurt that she had so little trust in him, and closed the door behind him gently. Once outside he cursed quietly. He knew he was right about Sara. Fardol's gut had never led him astray before, but Minnah had made some very good points. Hell, he himself had made some good points against taking action. Sara almost certainly didn't know what she was. According to Minnah she'd been pushed into the Blasted Lands by the Alliance, so that was also going to slow her down. It'd be months, even years, before she could go to Ulduar and by then they would surely have a more permanent solution.

The reborn Old God could wait.


	16. Chapter 15: The Angel of Nethergarde

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

In all honesty? It wasn't as bad as she thought it'd be.

Sure the resurrection was monotonous and exhaustive, but it left a good burn in her mana pool from all the 'exercise'. She even made a game with herself in counting the causes of death. After a week, she counted 561 punctures, 105 decapitations, 453 dismemberments, 200 magical deaths, and twenty-five she couldn't identify. She was doing the same thing over and over, but the subtle differences in each revival made it good enough for her tastes.

Some people had outright hilarious reactions to being brought back to life, to say nothing of her 'repeat customers'.

Sara stood over one of her latest patients, pouring her Old God magic into her body while carefully making sure it didn't have any... adverse effects. As she did, Sara got an eyeful of the worgen's armor.

The dead woman must've been on the front lines as a warrior, given her solid plate and the wicked two-handed sword leaning up against her cot. The cause of her death was apparent: a wide and ragged puncture hole right through her furry throat. It got harder to see more, because the miasma of death energy flowing out of her thickened, concealed her ginger fur, and then Sara finished the resurrection spell.

Like most did, the worgen sputtered back to life and nearly fell off the bed, her hands clutching at her throat desperately. "Wha - what?! Oh, oh it's you," she said in a heavy Gilnean accent. "Oh thank the Light!"

"Yes it's me. Now go report to your commanding officer."

The warrior swung out of the bed and grabbed her sword. "I shall. Thank you for saving me, miss."

As the woman walked away, Sara leaned against a wall and let out a breath. "Damn it," she said.

"Holding up alright?" Eric asked from the opposite side of the room. Like her, he too leaned against the wall. His job was to make sure she didn't overexert herself, and to get her food and drink since she was all but shackled to the morgue.

"I'm fine," she insisted. "And besides, with all this casting my mana pool's getting pretty deep. I'll be okay, just toss me a mana potion."

He reached over with his right hand and opened the cabinet, took one of the vials, and tossed it across the room to her. She caught it and downed the foul medicine, placing the empty flask on a nearby cot. "Thank you," she growled, trying to wipe the taste off her mouth.

"Another one!" someone shouted. Sara flicked her eyes to the doorway as two priests approached with a stretcher held in between them. On the stretcher was a muscular man still in his armor, with his sword and shield by his side. They brought him to one of the empty cots and placed him on it, weapons leaning against its side. With how quickly she revived people, they'd taken to bringing soldiers still in their gear so they could get right back into the action. "Can you handle him?" the lead priest asked.

"Yes," Sara said for the umpteenth time. "Just leave him there, I'll send him back." Still in her shadowy barrier, she turned to the man and inspected him. "Go, there are more people dying right?" They nodded and, just like they had many times before, left the morgue.

Sara turned to the dead man. He was dead to a gut wound, punctured clean through his armor. What could do something like that? Despite the grisly scene she lit up her magic and, before bringing him back, reached into his head.

She didn't use a tremendous amount of power, so her Old God magic only glowed purple. The lines of his thoughts were laid bare before her, dark without any life, but she began moving them around just slightly. She didn't change much, just little details; less chance to panic under stress, better reaction speed, higher pain tolerance, all simple things to make him a better soldier than when he died. Once those were done, she tightened her grip on her staff and pushed her magic into him _hard,_ finding his soul and dragging it back to his body. Before long the man sputtered back to life, better than ever.

He looked at her and groaned. "They got me, didn't they?"

"They did," she mentioned. "But it doesn't matter. Go give them what for, hmm?" she said with a hint of challenge.

"I will! I'll make that wrathguard regret ever laying a hand on me!" he shouted, hopping out and grabbing his weapons before storming out.

More priests came by, bringing bodies with them, over and over and over. Sara could keep up fairly easily, and the work was stimulating since each person she modified had ever so slightly different mental lines. It was exhaustive work, but she knew for a fact that she was making a difference. There was a very good reason she knew it for a fact, too.

With a brief lull in people to revive, Sara closed her eyes and 'turned' her vision sideways, to a soldier she'd created a one-way telepathy link with on her first day in Nethergarde. She peered into his eyes, trickling her magic into the link and saw... and saw...

The ramparts of Nethergarde Keep. Outside was the Blasted Lands, red and scorched under the baking sun to the north but to the south? A massive Forge Camp, the size of half the region and still growing, had sprung up. Twisted black and green machinery like she'd never seen before clustered the tainted ground, groaning with fel and flame as the demonic machines, some almost resembling hands reaching up from the ground, belched putrid smoke to the sky. The night elf she peeked through looked left, then he looked right. There were others by his side, manning ballistae or wielding guns and bows.

The kaldorei she looked through hefted his bow and looked down as more demons approached in a seemingly never ending stream. Sara got a good look at the Burning Legion's armies.

Felguards made up their brunt. Yellowish skin, horns, built like a siege engine, with enormous muscles and an even larger double-bladed axe clutched tightly in their hands. They walked in single file, shoulder to shoulder, row by row, footsteps shaking the land. The elf raised his bow and shot one in the throat, causing the felguard - armor and all - to dissolve into violet fog.

But there were far more than felguards. Flanking them were smaller demons. Cackling imps by the armful, snorting felhounds. There were also taller demons like the enormous, winged doomguards half flying and half hovering forward, or the six armed shivarra. The demonic women stayed back and seemed content to order other forces forwards while launching shadow bolts up at them from afar.

"Spellcasters, ready!" a voice shouted. "Aim! FIRE!"

As the felguards approached, pandemonium erupted among the Legion forces. Icicles shot down from the sky while fire burst from beneath the land. Gray clouds formed above demons and struck down lightning, tiny shadow novas popped in their ranks, but they continued unabated and more demons closed in besides the felguards...

Business as usual, then.

Suddenly, Sara felt someone on her shoulder. She jerked herself out of the elf's body to see Eric grasping her, shaking her so hard his own blonde hair wobbled. "Sara? You awake?"

She pushed him off as hard as she could, which was only enough to make him take a step back. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Hey, can you please go get me something to eat? Legion sent out another wave so I'm going to be getting a _lot_ of patients soon."

"... how do you know they sent out a wave?"

"Magic," she said simply. "Now go, please?" she asked, finishing with a pout. _Would he just leave already?!_

"Alright, alright. Stay safe, don't overwork yourself. I'll be back as soon as I can," Eric said before slipping out out the morgue and leaving Sara alone.

Sara had been correct, she got a _lot_ of patients. Too many, in fact, to keep up with. Minute after minute after minute people were brought in with their armor and weapons, laid down on the stained cots. With the additional time to modify their minds on top of resurrecting she couldn't keep up, and soon the morgue was nearly filled despite her best efforts. Then she had to cut out improving them and just resurrect the bodies to the tune of meteors smashing into the ground outside the barracks.

Eric returned before long and Sara graciously took one of the conjured mana biscuits in hand, eating and casting at the same time.

Like it had hundreds of times before, death magic pooled around her hands, leaving a foggy miasma within her shadowy barrier. Sara gripped the staff harder, finished up the mana biscuit, and resurrected the next soldier. The draenei gasped for breath and nearly fell out of the cot, looking up.

"No," she whispered. "No, no no, send me back!" she pleaded, looking up at Sara. "It was... it was so beautiful, send me back," she pleaded, tearing up. The draenei reached up with a gauntlet and gripped Sara's left hand, _hard._

"Let go!" she said, trying futilely to wrench her hand out. The woman let go, but still looked at her with wide, glowing blue eyes. "You want me to send you back?" She nodded tearfully, and Sara took a moment to decide how to go about it. She worked her expression into anger. "I can't believe you would be so _selfish!_ " The draenei recoiled as if struck. "We're here fighting off the Legion, trying to defend the world and all its innocents, and all you can think about is wanting to go back?!" Sara pointed a finger at her. "I know for a fact that there are far worse afterlives than what you experienced. What about those who've done so much wrong they'll go there? What of those trying to turn their lives around? You would have the Legion wash over the world and deny them that perfect afterlife because of YOUR selfish desires!"

"I - "

"That afterlife isn't going anywhere," Sara continued. "It'll be there for when you die for real. Right now though, we need _your_ help to stop the demons. Are you going to help, or are you just going to be a selfish _ass?_ " she snarled. Then, she took a deep breath to pretend to calm herself. "Get your weapon and report to your commanding officer."

"Yes, yes you're right," the draenei said, swinging out of the cot and grabbing her mace. "I apologize for my moment of weakness. Thank you for reviving me."

"Don't mention it," Sara muttered, already beginning her next resurrection.

The next one went smoothly, as did the three after. Around that time, the rate at which people were brought in to her slowed down and Sara could begin working on the overflow, modifying them as well now that things had slowed down. A night elf, lacerations. A gnome, dismemberment. A human, fire magic. Eventually she came to one of her _repeat_ customers.

He was _somewhat_ handsome, she supposed, though it was hard to tell at the moment given he was dead. His blonde hair was cut short to near baldness, and while his armor was normal white plate the helmet at his side had a few gold colors on it to indicate he was a sergeant. He seemed to have been killed by shadow magic, which meant little repairs were needed to his body. Still, he'd been in to visit her _quite_ a few times, so... maybe he needed some more enhancements.

Sara ran through the motions. Modify the brain links, drag the soul back, repair the body. Simple.

Unlike the others, he didn't lurch and gasp when he came back to life. Instead he raised his gauntlet and rested it over his face. "Aaaah! Got me again, damn it!" With practiced ease he got down and stood, reclaiming his helmet, sword, and shield. "Well, thanks for the save, I gotta get back out there. Wave's repelled but still some stragglers." The nameless sergeant saluted her and charged out of the morgue.

It took a little more than an hour, given how people were _still_ dying and being brought to her, but Sara managed to catch up and empty the morgue. That just left her and Eric, and she certainly wasn't about to make small talk with that idiot. While reviving the trickle of soldiers was entertaining in its own way, she just wanted... more.

So maybe she'd been lying to herself when she said it wasn't all that bad.

The problem was it didn't feel like she was _doing_ anything! Sure she was bringing some soldiers back to life, but how much were they really any good for? They were holding Nethergarde thanks to her, but that wasn't going to stop the Legion. The demons would never, ever stop coming unless they forced them out of Azeroth entirely. After all, they were demons. She'd studied it quite intensively.

Energy and matter could be interchanged, and all matter on the planet was energy that had, at some point in the past, transformed into matter. Demons were similar, but instead of energy they were shadow magic turned flesh and blood within the Twisting Nether. That gave them the ability to, upon death, return to the Nether and reform in new bodies, unmarred by any injury. There were exceptions; if a demon had too much magic then it 'collapsed' upon their soul, annihilating them for good. Things like pit lords, or eredar. There was even an equation describing the cut-off point, and a separate one for dreadlords.

The problem was the rank and file. The Legion had limitless numbers, and while Sara could revive everyone their other resources, like gunpowder and armor, were far more limited.

It was a mistake to have come to Nethergarde. She'd have been better off going to Ulduar and searching for something, anything, that could turn the tide. Some secret weapon. A way to empower her Old God magic. Even mind controlling the Titan Watchers. Anything would be more productive than her sitting in the Blasted Lands bringing people back just for the idiots to get themselves killed again. Maybe she'd go tune out her vision, take her mind off things.

Sara continued to resurrect, but she turned her vision towards the night elf she'd linked to and saw...

... he was in some sort of tactical meeting. Apparently he was higher in authority than Sara thought. She'd lucked out, she could certainly get something valuable out of him.

He stood in a castle, probably the one Sara wasn't in. The room was very large and _very_ wooden, with stone only in its walls. Aside from that there were bookshelves, books, planks on the floor, on the roof, planks in general scattered around without a care, wooden stairs to a raised wooden platform with wooden railing, and a wooden table polished to a shine. On the table were maps of the surrounding area with colored thumbtacks representing various things. If Sara had to guess, the green clusters to the south were strategic Legion targets, the red were Horde forces, and blue represented the Alliance.

Her elf stood at one end of the table, hands behind his back. There was also a grizzled old man with a blinding bald spot in the middle of his gray hair and an impressive amount of medals adorning his vest, and an empty pipe pretended to smoke in his mouth. There were some other people around too, likely lesser officers, but Sara couldn't be bothered with them.

As she watched, she resurrected a high elf woman.

" - eredar moving up here," the night elf said, pointing to one of the green markers that were uncomfortably close to Nethergarde. "Seems like they're preparing a large number of infernals."

"Agrees with what our shamans far-saw to the southwest," one of the unimportant officers said. "Infernal meteor stockpiles here and here, they are ready to start launching at any moment. But if we can strike the gateways here and here with bombs, then the feedback should rupture a great many of them. Our position is not yet precarious thanks to Miss Smithers and Stormwind's reinforcements, so we should take this opportunity to strike back at the Legion and begin working on forcing them back."

"What is the Horde planning?" her elf asked.

"I just got finished talkin' with Legionnaire Tral'gok," the old man said. "They've noticed the same situation with the infernals, but they're more interested in sabotaging their machinery portals. Can't blame 'em given how many fel cannons are aimed at them. Either way with our situation stabilizing, it's an opportune time to hamstring the demons while we still can."

"How are we going to reach the infernals though? They are far behind enemy lines and there's too much smog over them to fly high up."

Sara tuned out partially, not all that interested in the specifics of their strategy. However, it was some very good news. They were actually going to strike out at the demons. They weren't just going to sit in Nethergarde and try to beat the Burning Legion in a war of attrition. Though if they really thought her resurrecting soldiers was doing anything they were morons. After all, a lot of her patients were _repeat customers. S_ till, if they could pull off destroying the infernals then maybe they could actually get something _done._

Maybe she wouldn't desert _quite_ yet.

* * *

Sara's sleep schedule was a mess, but after studying for six years at the Academy, odd sleep schedules were nothing she was unused to.

The demons didn't rest, and that meant neither did Sara since people kept dying overnight. This forced her to take little catnaps in between resurrections, or just power through whenever the demons sent out a wave at night. In the darkness, with visibility impaired and the Burning Legion sieging the walls, Sara got a _lot_ of patients and she half wondered if she could possibly revive them all. Each time though, her magic pulled through. Each time, thanks to her deepening mana pool, it was easier.

She leaned against the stone walls, her pearlescent green shield distorted to let her do so. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was slow. She didn't _think_ she was asleep, but she felt so lightheaded and faint she wouldn't have been able to tell.

"Another one, Sara," Eric said between yawns.

Sara jolted and blinked furiously, looking at the medics bringing in a man to rest on one of the clean cots. "Oh, right." Not even bothering to go closer to him, she tightened her grip on her staff and pointed her free hand at him. After a little bit of mind altering and soul moving, he was back and better than ever. Then she leaned back against the wall and let her eyes slam shut.

Outside, Sara could hear the _thud thud thud_ of infernals landing in Nethergarde. Every now and then one of them smashed into the barracks she was in, shaking her to her bones. She found herself eager to go outside of the morgue, to go against the infernals and smash them with her Old God magic. To find Doomguards and nail them in the chest with a shadow bolt and then watch them crumple. She could do so much damage, so easily, and she was stuck here reviving these _imbeciles!_ Sure she understood why, her powers were their secret weapon against the Legion, but she could do so much more good out there! Didn't they see that? They'd failed to stop the infernals, they'd failed to stop the breaches, those idiots were going to get her parents killed if she didn't do something!

It would be so easy. Just walk outside, start killing everything in sight.

But no. Sara would just bring 'justice' upon her head for disobeying orders, then they'd - try to - lock her away and everything would just go downhill. Why she oughta -

"Another."

Sara jerked herself back to the waking world just long enough to resurrect the next woman, then fell back into sleep.

Stupid, stupid stupid.

Clip, clop.

Sara _almost_ jerked, but kept herself still and pretended to be asleep.

Clip, clop.

Her first thought was that it was a draenei's hooves, but that wasn't quite right. Draenei hooves had more _ring_ to their clip-clops. Whoever this was, they were not a draenei. It was something else.

It was the sound of demon hooves.

Sara waited. The sound came closer. It was faint, too. If she wasn't focused on it there was no way she'd be able to pick it apart from her own breathing. Clip, clop. Clip, clop. Then it stopped, in front of her and a little distance away... probably right in front of Eric.

There was the sound of tearing, muted struggles, and Sara snapped her eyes open.

The demon in question was a succubus. Two massive horns sprouted straight up from a head of black hair, and her teal eyes glowed brighter than even a draenei's. Around the demon's neck was a choker with a blue gem, and a pair of bat wings - with sharp spikes adorning them - sprouted from her back. She wore scandalously little on her sinuous body, but what little there was was deep blue like the sea with faded gold lines, and her pinkish skin had red tattoos here and there. Below her knees, her skin changed into rough demon scales with spikes on the back, all the way to her hooves. A lithe, fleshy tail swung behind her. The demon's right hand clutched a serrated leather whip and the fingernails were talons, talons which had slit Eric's throat, muted his struggles, and lowered him to the ground.

Sara narrowed her eyes, and growled. She was going to have to bring _him_ back too?! That demon was going to fry!

Eric was already dead, or would be soon enough from blood loss, so friendly fire wasn't an issue. She summoned cataclysmic shadow magic to her hands and thrust them out at the succubus. A cresting wave of unfocused shadow magic blew outwards from her like a hurricane. The demon tried to move out of the way but it was much too late for her. Despite the natural shadow resistance demons had, Sara's magic lifted her up and blasted her against the wall, where she then dropped to the ground with an erotic groan.

Wait... she had a better idea. She wasn't going to _kill_ this demon. Oh no, far from it. Hands glowing dark purple, Sara forced her magic into the succubus's mind. Like it did with people, she saw a complex framework of mental lines connected with each other. To her surprise, it was very similar to that of a regular person. Maybe succubi used to be mortals and were corrupted into demons, their essence burnt into the Twisting Nether? It was a fascinating idea, but the practical application was that she could mind control this monster easily.

Snip, paralyzed demon. Snip, magicless demon. Then she began her _real_ work. Initiative, that could go. There it was, loyalty! The speech center, hearing center. Just a few snips and... now the succubus was loyal to anyone talking to her. Perfect. Then she directed her magic into Eric. He was only freshly dead, so it was relatively little effort to bring him back, and repairing his injuries was simple. He sputtered back to life and clutched his throat, kicking himself away from the motionless succubus with a noise not unlike a choking mouse.

"Relax," she said tiredly. "You're fine. I paralyzed her, we're all fine. How the hell did she sneak up on you? Were you asleep, Eric?" she growled.

He grabbed a cot and used it to push himself onto two feet. "She just... appeared in front of me, I think she was invisible. Can they even do that?"

Sara considered that. "Hmm, they actually can. While you were dead I mind controlled her. Let's just see what she has to say for herself." She directed her magic back at the succubus and undid the paralysis. "Stand, but make no move to harm anyone," she ordered. The succubus did, looking past Sara with a thousand yard stare. The demon's whip laid on the ground. "What was the meaning of your attempted assassination?" she demanded.

"I was sent by my superiors to infiltrate Nethergarde Keep, eliminate any key individuals, and report back with knowledge of the interior layout," she said in a silky but hollow voice.

Interesting. But as Sara was thinking of another question to ask, two priests with a stretcher held between them came in.

"Another one miss - oh dear WHAT is going on?!" the lead medic asked when she saw the succubus trying to impersonate a statue. "Why is there one of them in here?"

Without waiting for them to bring the dead dwarf to a cot, Sara began to revive him. "This one was a Legion assassin, turned invisible and killed Eric. I mind controlled her. Maybe someone higher up will be interested about this?" she asked. "If that's the case, one of you run along and get whoever would be interested by this." She finished up the resurrection and the dwarf jerked. He looked up at her and grinned before hopping off the stretcher and making his way out.

"I'll get Marshal Aloric," the priest further back said. "Keep the succubus here!" He darted out of the morgue, leaving just the three of them and the one demon.

"So Sara..." Eric began. "I never knew you could mind control demons."

"Yeah well," she muttered. "Now you do. It's not even real mind control, I just changed what she likes to do. If she decides to attack us she can, I just made that very unlikely." She wondered if it was permanent. If she killed the succubus, would she reform with the changes still in place? Probably.

Conversation petered out. Sara was reluctant to ask more questions from the demon, since she didn't want to repeat herself once 'Marshal Aloric' arrived.

She had time for two more resurrections and two more brief naps before the Marshal arrived. He arrived in full uniform with a fair amount of badges on his vest. Not as many as the old man she'd seen through the night elf, but enough to be impressive to other people. He was bald, far too bald for his mid-forties, and looked past her at the succubus with the sort of disdain usually reserved for cockroaches, or people who got between her and what she wanted. She hesitated, but reluctantly stood up straight to face him.

"Is this the one?" he asked.

"It is, sir," she said as respectfully as she could manage. "She came in here invisibly and killed Eric. I mind controlled her, revived him, and here we are."

"I see. How much longer can you maintain control over it?"

"Permanently, so long as no outside force reverses what I did," she said. "It should also be noted the changes I did to her renders her without much initiative, and loyal to anybody who talks to her, including other demons. I highly recommend keeping her isolated. You may question her at your leisure. Sir."

" _Interesting,_ " he hummed, facing the succubus. Sara couldn't help but smirk when his gaze briefly dropped lower than the demon's face. "Demon. What were your orders for coming here?"

"Assassination and reconnaissance. Memorize layout of barrack interior, identify and kill key personnel. Should I fail to eliminate and was eliminated myself, then upon reformation I would report to Doomlord Ku'rozal of what I learned, and afterwards await further orders. Should I succeed, I was to return and inform Doomlord Ku'rozal of what I accomplished and afterwards await further orders."

"I see. What rank does this Doomlord Ku'rozal have in the Legion?" he asked.

"Doomlord Ku'rozal is the leader of the southern Eastern Kingdoms invasion. He is tasked with moving upwards while the forces in the north move downwards."

"And what plans does he have in the meantime?" the Marshal asked, pacing around the succubus.

"I do not know, I was not informed," the demon droned.

"What attacks are planned for tomorrow? Where are they coming from?"

"At sunrise, a contingent of doomguards is to fly around your perimeter and drop in near the mess hall. In the distraction, gan'arg are to place fel cannons near and, if possible inside your walls. Following that there is a planned pause to regroup our forces, followed by a larger attack force the day after whose details I was not privy to."

"Damn it!" the Marshal swore. "Smithers, if this demon of yours is telling the truth then you may have just done us a world of good! I'll take it with me for further interrogation."

"Sir, if I may make a request?" she asked.

"Speak," he said with a nod.

"I believe I should - oh, excuse me," she said, trying to hide a yawn. "I believe I would be able to do much more good fighting demons directly than resurrecting soldiers. My shadowy barrier is impenetrable, and in the amount of magic it takes to bring someone back I could destroy a great number of demons. My powers are being wasted in here."

"Hmm, I can certainly see how you may think that, given that you don't leave this place. Rest assured miss, you are doing wonders. You are our secret weapon. While it may be true that for individual soldiers you could do more with your magic than resurrecting them, your continued efforts have gone a long way towards reinforcing our position in the Blasted Lands. Medical supplies are far less strained, and morale is through the roof since nobody truly needs fear death so long as you are here. I know it may not seem like much in here, but rest assured you are doing a tremendous amount of good, far more than if you were to go fighting the demons and, Light forbid, get yourself killed."

She nodded. Maybe if she had more sleep she'd try harder to convince him, maybe even tweak his thoughts a little, but at the moment he seemed to make a lot of good points. "I understand, sir," she said, returning to the wall. "I'm just worried that it seems all we're doing is delaying the inevitable."

"Your worries are noted, but rest assured we are doing everything we can to repel this invasion. You don't need a degree in magical education to know what these creatures do. Demon, follow me." The Marshal turned around, with the succubus on his heels. After they were out of sight Sara let out an anguished groan.

She'd been hoping he would see reason but no. She was going to be trapped here. And sure they kept talking about repelling the Legion but that sure as hell wasn't happening! She'd give them another three days to get something done, but after that?

After that, it was time to go to Ulduar.


	17. Chapter 16: Unstoppable

Sara

  


The next day passed with no progress against the Legion.

The day after also passed with no progress.

On the third day, Sara's eyes kept wandering to the book she'd hid her distraction gem within. She had spent a lot of her free time figuring out how she would go about leaving Nethergarde for Ulduar. After all, it was an _abominably_ long trip across some fairly inhospitable terrain. It was quite a puzzle, unfortunately. She desperately did not want to have to slog back to Stormwind through the Swamp of Sorrows, Deadwind Pass, into Duskwood, and from there get a gryphon ride to the city. The obvious solution was to take a mage portal, but where was she going to get one of _those?_

She sighed, keeping her left hand extended over the most recent corpse. The hole in the sergeant's chest sealed up and he came back to life blinking. Right away he swung himself off and grabbed his weapon, muttering, "Stupid doomguards, that cripple spell is such a piece of shit, gonna use their wings like toothpicks... "

Sara forced herself not to laugh. Oh, she was certain there was a story behind _that._

Time continued to tick, tick, tick past. Sara spent more time in the eyes of the night elf, watching the ongoing fight through his body. Though there wasn't much fight at the moment, the demons seemed oddly quiet. That could only be an ill omen. But, there wasn't much she could do. All Sara was capable of was thinking and thinking of a way to get out of the Blasted Lands, preferably without being caught. With so many mages around to counterspell her magic, she couldn't force the issue either. If they were in one place where she could just blow them apart with a shadow nova, maybe.

Her eyes turned to the bag she'd brought to Nethergarde, and her thoughts went again to the distraction gem still hidden inside. Maybe if she...

... no, that wouldn't work.

There wasn't even anyone to resurrect, given how the Legion had seemingly backed off for the time being. That, at least, left Sara with plenty of time to scheme. Or, as she was currently doing, time to analyze the data she'd gotten from her expedition to C'Thun. Sara found a seat on one of the cots, brought the paper to her and, with a board as a table, was busy throwing math at the data. Eric had gone to get them both breakfast, so at the very least she was alone, safe behind the shadowy barrier that had already kept a succubus from assassinating her.

She yawned, scribbling down more equations on her sheet. Carry the one... invert the cosine... blah blah blah, she'd gotten through the hard part and now all she needed to do was plug in the values in the formula. After some easy but time consuming arithmetic, she got her answer of twenty eight years.

Hmm.

That meant the traces of C'Thun's magic that had wafted as far as Desolace were a relatively recent phenomenon. The whole of Kalimdor hadn't been contaminated for millennia, and more likely it was C'Thun's rise to the surface in recent years that had released its magic so far. That was, by far, the best case scenario.

Eric came by and, like the good little servant he was, brought her the slop that passed for breakfast in the Alliance military. He took a seat across from her and they both started to choke it down, during which Sara kept working. There was a lot to do to detect any hint of the spell the Old Gods used to link to Azeroth. A tremendous amount of comparing, contrasting, so on. She didn't _think_ C'Thun itself had cast the spell, but she needed to prove it mathematically. It was exactly as difficult as she thought it'd be, and ran herself ragged trying to figure out which theorems to use when. Eventually, Sara gave up on it and decided to wait until she had data from the other Old Gods.

"So," Eric said at length. "What are you working on?"

She glared up at him from the papers. "Stuff for being an Archmage, none of your business." She turned her attention back down and scribbled down the spell decay equation.

The door opened and two medics came in, carrying a dead night elf woman between them. "Miss Smithers, apologies for disturbing you but - "

"Yeah yeah," she said, cutting them off. Without preamble she pointed a magic-shrouded hand at the elf and began reviving her. "What happened to her?"

"A wound got infected badly, we didn't catch it in time," the medic in the back said.

"Mmhmm," she said, taking care not to let the strain of resurrecting someone show. With one final heave, she brought the woman back to life and purged her body of disease. "There, done. Anything interesting happening?"

The lead priest shook his head as the night elf looked around, groaning as though she had a headache. "Nothing much, just taking care of the wounded."

"Mmhmm. If you have no further business here then leave, I am very busy," she said crassly, pointing back to her work.

Even as she worked on interpreting the enormous amounts of data, writing down C'Thun's magic signature on a graph and comparing it with her own, with the faceless, Sara continued to wonder how she would even get to Ulduar. She needed a portal, that much was obvious. But where? Obviously the closer the better.

She tapped the pencil on her chin. Maybe if she could corner a mage alone, using her distraction gem to get there, and force them to open a portal. Obviously have them close it behind her, but how would she keep them from blabbing about where she went? It'd be best if she just went 'missing' and could be written up to being assassinated, rather than desertion. But how? Should she just... activate her gem and go for it? No, no that wouldn't work. When the gem's effects passed and she was nowhere to be found everyone would think she deserted. She needed an _outside_ distraction. But what?

Sara growled and wrote down a few more equations, trying to focus her attention on her work. It was absurd. Why did she even worry about being called a deserter? When she returned from Ulduar with the power that would turn the tide of the war, nobody would consider being angry with her. Even if she failed, and was accosted after the war, she could kill and/or mind control anyone who forced the issue. Still, even if she _could_ handle it that didn't mean she wanted to have to.

An hour passed. And another. Eric went out to get her lunch, and then the world shook.

She shrieked and dropped her work over to the side when the first quake hit, rattling her to her bones. She couldn't hear any fighting, but then again she was in the barracks. Then there was another impact. It sounded first like a dull _whum_ followed by a low growling sound as the earth shook. Sara grimaced, but put away her papers and stood in the middle of the room, grabbing her staff in one hand. She had a sneaking suspicion that she was about to get a _lot_ of patients.

Sure enough, she was right. A human, a dwarf, a draenei, a gnome, another gnome. Sara settled into her routine, relishing in the burn of shadow magic along her arms.

_Knock knock knock!_

Sara whipped her head over to glare at the intruder, only to find a worgen man standing there, knocking against the inside of the open door. "What?" she snarled.

He chuckled but let himself in. "Sorry for startling you. Would you happen to know where I can find a Miss Smithers? Sara Smithers?"

She huffed. "You're looking at her. Stand over there, don't block any of the dead people being brought in." He did as she told him to, planting himself between two currently empty cots just in time for another dead soldier to be brought in. Without even bothering to look at him, Sara began to gather the magic to resurrect him. "So why are you bothering me?" She didn't care who he was. Much.

"My name is Flinch Chandler," he said despite her apathy. Sara eyed him again and got a good look at him. Unlike most worgen who liked to keep their fur well kept, his was shaggy and long, the dark gray strands clumping together irregularly. He stood out in Nethergarde because of how casual his clothes were. His pants were baggy and long and his shirt was small with hardly any sleeves. He wore, as was typical of his race, no shoes on his clawed feet. The peculiar aspect, though, was his guild tabard. It was purple, and had the lion of the Alliance inside the Horde's horseshoe, with a staff and a sword crossed behind it. She knew she'd seen that logo before...

 _Whum_ went an infernal.

Her face paled. Oh no. He was -

"Nice to meet you," he said, extending a hand. "I'm with the Liberality Confederacy, I was hoping I could ask you a few questions?"

Sara gulped, but forced her voice to steady and shook his hand vigorously. "Well I'm not going anywhere," she said with a little laugh. "Please, take a seat. You may need to end up standing though if I get swamped with people."

_Whum._

"I understand, you're very busy here, what is it, bringing back the dead. I hope you're comfortable?"

"Just cut to the chase," she said, accidentally revealing some of her nervousness. "Why is the Liberality Confederacy interested in me? I have an idea as to why, but I'd like to hear it."

He smiled at her wryly, showing off some of his fangs. "Your resurrection powers, I assume? That's a large part of it, though not all of it. Listen Sara - can I call you Sara?" She nodded. "Listen Sara, I've read about you. You've had these powers all your life, so clearly you don't see them as too important. I'd wager you don't exactly see life and death the way the rest of us do, either. Your ability is very valuable and we at the Liberality Confederacy would greatly appreciate having access to you as... call it a safety net."

"I'm not that good in a fight," she said, her throat tight. "I led an expedition to Ahn'Qiraj and when the qiraji attacked, I spent the entire fight getting knocked around." Sara did _not_ want to be in the Liberality Confederacy. Sure the prestige and authority was tantalizing, but they had the job of going up against the big hitters. Deathwing, Illidan Stormrage, Kil'jaeden. She was all for having the ability to do anything she wanted, but she was also not keen on _dying._ She was powerful but... the greater demon lords? Beings that could kill anybody within a second if they so desired, crush a city into dust by drawing in the sand, battle all four Dragon Aspects at the same time and prevail?

No, she wanted _no_ part in that.

"Really," she concluded. "I mean, I can fry the demons out there pretty easy, but the things your guild goes up against are out of my league."

"That's perfectly understandable," he said. Then the worgen reached into a pocket and pulled out a few folded up sheets of paper. "But hear me out. One of the advantages of being in the Liberality Confederacy is access to a great deal of otherwise confidential records." He unfolded the paper and began to read over it. "Mainly, your magic recording. Your mana pool was at one hundred and twenty six thousand standard units deep. Your power is one thousand seven hundred and three tenths, and your resistance is at five hundred thirty eight." Her stomach dropped. How had he gotten those records? Exactly what sort of 'access' did they have? "That is _quite_ a lot. Our fighters use enchanted gear to boost their power and stamina. They're strong on their own, sure, but against Naga Queens and Pit Lords every bit counts. Your magic levels, at the time of this recording, were actually slightly above what our casters have with full gear equipped."

Sara blinked. "Really?"

He shrugged. "Not by much, but then again you don't have any enchanted gear either. You'd actually do very well with us."

"But I'm not good at - " she protested weakly, feeling her heart pound faster and faster.

"Also, relax. You seem to be laboring under the impression that everyone in my guild has to join the battle raids, but this couldn't be further from the truth. We have a core fighting team of about forty people, and usually we take a little more than half of them on raids depending on who Turaniles wants to bring. However we have a lot of other people to support those. Blacksmiths, alchemists, engineers, spies.

 _Spies, like to get my records,_ she thought angrily.

"... archaeologists, and recruiters like yours truly. Actually!" He moved the papers around until he was looking at another one. "You worked at that store in Stormwind right? Uh... what's its name. Inscription and enchantment work right?"

She nodded, getting a slightly better feeling in her stomach. If she wouldn't be _forced_ to fight... still, where was Eric?

_Whum!_

"Right, those two," she said confidently. Another man was brought in, dead, and she revived him. "Been working there for a few years."

"Yes well, your skill in those two would be and no offense, below our level but given how accomplished you are for your age, I imagine it'd take you little time to catch up. Your assistance with enchantment and inscription would be well received, but beyond that is, again, your resurrection powers. The application for those goes without saying. However there is _one_ other thing," he said, raising one finger as he did so.

"Really?" she asked, her stomach dropping again. What else could there be?

"Now understand, I don't mean anything against you, but I know what sort of magic you have." Sara's eyes widened and her shadow magic began to bubble around her hands reflexively, spewing more dark fog into the air. "I also know that you know."

"How?!" she hissed.

"I suspected you knew given that you went knocking around C'Thun's corpse, but it's mostly because you just told me," the worgen said smugly.

Her eye twitched, and the shadow magic thickened. Liberality Confederacy or not, she was going to turn this mutt inside out.

" _Relax,_ " he urged. "Faceless magic or not it doesn't mean much, and I haven't told the Archmages anything. Don't know if they know, but just in case they don't?" He winked. "We'll just have to go over their heads." She was _not_ going to relax her magic. Shadow barrier or not, if he put one foot out of line... "We don't get many opportunities to test faceless magic, usually their wielders are busy trying to destroy the world and don't submit to examinations. However if you were willing to give us a sample of your power, it could go a long way towards developing a more effective way to shield people from the power of the Old Gods. It's like your expedition. Find out how to undo their link for when the fifth Old God needs to be fought, but in this case it's finding a better way to fight the fifth one when it emerges."

"I see," she said stiffly. "So you want me to come in order to revive the fallen, get up to speed on my profession and then make inscriptions and enchantments for the fighters, and to develop countermeasures for Old God magic." She forced her magic back down and crossed her arms. "What's in it for me?" she asked.

"Glad you asked!" he piped, flipping through his papers again. "Our guild pays members a monthly stipend through the treasury, it's fifteen hundred gold per month." Sara forced herself not to gape, and to act uninterested. But... _fifteen hundred!_ "You'll be provided lodgings within Darnassus, as well as access to files from all factions. Oh, you _will_ have to get used to having orcs and forsaken and the like around you though."

"That won't be a problem," she said quietly, not even glancing over at the newest gnome as she revived her. "This is a somewhat better offer than what I thought it would be originally." Maybe she should. She wouldn't be fighting, she'd learn a great deal of enchantment and inscription, she could get her hands on all the documents Archmages could _and more,_ plus they could help her get to the bottom of her Old God magic. "Very well, I acce - "

_WHUM-KABOOM!_

The wall of the keep blew inwards, bricks severing themselves from each other and pelting the inside of the room like enormous hail. The momentous force lifted up Sara, shield and all, and tossed her back into a wall. Even with her barrier absorbing most of the force and weakening her deceleration, she collapsed to the ground as stars filled her vision.

A low roar filled the air. She glanced up to see that the wall of the keep had been completely blasted open, revealing the scene of a hellish, fierce battle taking place in Nethergarde. Sunlight spilled in, revealing that mixed in with the shattered white bricks in the morgue, greenish-gray boulders had fallen as well. The impact had blown Flinch Chandler against a cot and impaled him through the chest with a splinter of wood, and sent Sara's pack filled with her belongings scattered on the floor.

Then the boulders moved.

Slowly at first, but then they rapidly pulled themselves towards each other, stacking up, up, and up until they formed a towering form six yards tall with boulders for legs, boulders for fists, the largest boulder for a ribcage and a small boulder with smoldering fire for eyes floated at the top of the ribcage. Then the head turned towards her and the inside of the stony ribcage _caught fire._ The emerald flames spread outwards from the infernal, forming fireball 'joints' in between its rock limbs, and causing its fists and legs to burn. Everything flammable in the room immediately began to wither, and in just a moment all the cots burst into flames. Sara was protected from the worst of the heat thanks to her shield, but even under its glossy magic she immediately broke out into a sweat.

Sara launched a shadow bolt at the infernal.

It was a quick cast and she hadn't put much power behind it, so when it splashed against the infernal's chest it only took a surprised step backwards. Still, that was enough time for her to scramble to her feet, nearly fall over, and sprint towards her burning belongings. A massive fist hammered her shield and threw off her balance, but instead of screaming she just readjusted and ducked below the next wild fist. She grabbed at her burning book and stomped it out until all that was left was the blue, teardrop gem it had held.

She scooped it up and hissed at how hot it had gotten in mere seconds of exposure to the infernal, but pocketed it and turned her eyes back to the rock demon. Sara held up her left hand and summoned a bright purple glow to it, and released an unfocused wave of magic that turned the infernal back into cold, inert rubble.

"Staff, staff," she muttered, looking around the destroyed room for the staff she'd been using during resurrection. She found it... broken into shards. She would just have to handle any over channeling as it came. A quick glance outside, at the shouts and screams and infernals and felguards and myriad other demons, settled the matter in Sara's mind.

It was time to bail.

She pulled out her distraction gem and, after blowing on it a few times, she channeled a surge of energy into the little crystal. It instantly began to radiate light, and she held it firmly in her fist. Like before, it would prevent anyone who looked in her direction from noticing her by putting them into a sort of stupor, whether or not they saw the gem itself. It was with that gem in her right hand that Sara stepped out into the Blasted Lands.

Through her shadowy barrier, Sara heard gunshots, swords clashing, and spells flying left and right. Most of the fighting seemed to be concentrated on the walls, but raining infernals and flying doomguards had landed in the middle of the keep and were engaged by soldiers left behind specifically for that scenario. The wizard tower near the back of Nethergarde Keep was, fortunately, largely untouched but it was a _long_ run there.

Sara went to the side, trying to hide around the smaller gryphon roosts, alchemy labs, and other lesser buildings. Her distraction gem wouldn't work on infernals.

_Whum! Whum! Whum!_

And there were a lot of infernals.

She ducked behind a boulder to avoid a fight between a doomguard and two night elves. She pressed against a wall to hide from a pack of roaming felhounds. Sara peeked around the wall to see how far she was from the wizard tower. Decently far, but she was making good progress. As long as nothing took notice of her...

_WHUM!_

Sara flew backwards like a rocket and smacked shield-first into Nethergarde's brick walls. She slumped down into her barrier and groaned, clutching her stomach. That was... not fun. Her eyes glanced up blearily to see more demonic rocks pulling themselves together into the form of a towering infernal that, with a roar, launched itself at her. She focused and began forming the matrix for a shadow bolt, channeling so much magic it shone green around her hands, and released the skull-shaped missile.

She missed.

The shadow bolt passed harmlessly through the gaps in between the infernal's rocks and left a crater in the building behind it. In the meantime the animated demon grabbed Sara's magic barrier in an arm and smashed it against the wall, jostling her. Sara gasped and flinched when, still holding her with one massive rock arm, the infernal reared its other fist back and slammed it into her shield with cataclysmic force.

Her shield cracked.

 _Get a hold of yourself, Sara!_ she told herself. _You wield the power of the Old Gods, you've killed an infernal not ten minutes ago, kill this one!_

While her barrier was continuously hammered, she repaired it and then summoned the magic for another shadow bolt. In a second it was ready and then she shot out her left hand to fire it. It found its mark in the infernal's comically small head, forcing it back a few yards and letting Sara drop to the ground. Before the infernal stopped skidding backwards she was already preparing another apocalyptic shadow bolt, and launched that second one. The second shadow bolt also flew true, leaving a trail of smoke behind it, and its power was enough to disrupt the fel energy animating the infernal. It collapsed into rubble.

Sara gasped and leaned over, groaning and clutching her burning legs with her smoldering arms. "Damn it," she breathed. Over channeling again. At this rate she was going to end up seriously hurting herself. She needed to hold back on her magic. She didn't need to down every demon with two hits as long as her barrier held. Sara glanced around. There were more demons coming and the soldiers were being forced off the walls to more directly hold the gate. Then she saw the titanic demon approaching Nethergarde keep.

She had read about them. She had seen the pictures, heard the stories, but even from so far away nothing had prepared her for the sight of the annihilan. It was as tall as a dragon, some fifteen yards and then some from head to toe. It was like some defiled cross between a dragon and a centaur, with four powerful legs that each ended in sharp, stubby claws. Its skin was green and leathery, except for the underbelly which was patterned with armor-like yellow scales.

The hind legs were bent oddly, and the forelegs were planted beneath a powerful torso. The torso had two meaty arms coming off it, with red wristbands. The hands held a single double-bladed glaive, almost as long as the pit lord itself and even as Sara watched the demon swung upwards, flaring the two vestigial, red-webbed bat wings sprouting from its back.

The glaive smashed into a stone archway and sent bricks flying as the demon laughed. As it opened its mouth Sara caught sight of the burning demonfire within its gullet, the same fire that burned at the top of its head in place of hair, trailing down its back and all along its muscular, spiny tail like a horse's mane. Two enormous tusks, thrice her size, jutted out from either side of the pit lord's face and curved straight up, as if to secure prey close to its mouth for it to gorge upon. Even its nostrils and eyes were little baleful cinders, as if the entirety of the annihilan's cruel body was a shell made to contain a roaring star.

Yep. _Definitely_ time to go.

Sara turned for the wizard tower and _bolted,_ dodging fights and soaking arrows with her shadowy barrier. The pit lord roared, and suddenly a narrow beam of fel energy seared overhead and into a brawl between a group of warriors, a mage, and a dreadlord. The beam hit in the midst of them and, while the dreadlord was able to wing away from them in time to avoid being roasted, the others were blown away like rag dolls. Still in the air, the dreadlord looked her way and grinned.

Dreadlords were not as brutally overwhelming as pit lords, but the nathrezim had their own sinister danger. This one, like others, had corpse-like skin and enormous bat wings with pale lavender webbing sprouting from his back. Two black horns sprouted almost straight up from its head and engraved in its skin were two black streaks from beneath his smoldering eyes. The dreadlord's hands ended in four talons, and unlike most demons the pallid nathrezim wore almost full body plate, elaborately designed with demon runes on its blue metal and a sash of skulls around his waist, and like most demons his legs ended in hooves.

And he wasn't affected by her distraction spell.

The dreadlord laughed and winged towards Sara faster than she would've thought possible. She could see her magic working on it, but it must've been shielding itself psychically. And that meant she needed to do this the hard way, with a pit lord at her back. Forget holding back, time was of the essence and she could deal with over channeling later. Sara's Old God magic flowed around her hands and she began preparing a spell.

The dreadlord was quicker. He brought his hands in to his chest and thrust them out. Instantaneously, a cresting wave of green magic formed, filled with carrion insects buzzing in and out of existence. She gasped, but with the spell still half formed she dug in her heels and let the carrion swarm splash around her shield and push her back a few yards. When she stopped, Sara launched her shadow bolt at the dreadlord. The laughing skull screamed through the air, but the demon just effortlessly dodged to the side and ran at her, smacking her shield with his talons.

Her barrier held and she didn't move, giving Sara the opportunity to nail the dreadlord in the chest with a shadow bolt. She gleefully saw surprise flicker across his face as her shadow magic burnt into him, even through the natural shadow resistance most demons had, as the spell tossed him back. Using that opportunity Sara reached her Old God magic into his _mind._

The familiar sprawl of thought lines laid itself out before her, but Sara wasn't interested in doing anything precise. She was going to turn this demon into a _vegetable._ She gathered her sinister power and struck at the first thought line... only for the dreadlord to jerk to the side at the last second, causing her attack to ravage the air where his brain had been only moments before.

"No!" he shouted, before muttering a curse in Demonic. Then Sara knew pain.

She could see a red skull laughing above her, and felt the shadow magic lashing all about her skin. A weak breath escaped her lips, but she steeled herself. It was just an agony curse. She'd felt a few of them dueling, it was nothing she couldn't work around. She brought her hands in and gathered her magic, then threw her arms back and released a colossal, blinding shadow nova.

When the dark magic faded she found the dreadlord struggling to right himself mid air, and she took the opportunity to cast another spell she rarely, if ever, used. A 'funnel' appeared between her and the dreadlord, and thick streams of emerald life energy began to flow from the dreadlord's chest into her arm and from there through her entire body. It was... incredible. A rush of well being and nourishment that even the escalating pain of his curse couldn't overcome.

The dreadlord, of course, responded to her life drain spell with his own. Sara winced as she felt something like her organs being sucked out through a funnel, but stopped the life drain spell and instead nailed the dreadlord with another shadow bolt while he was distracted. He flew back, stunned, and Sara took a moment to stifle a scream as the agony spell grew stronger, like hot nails being driven into her chest. Another shot from the pit lord sounded, blasting a forge to rubble and slag. She had to focus though. Sara concentrated on the nathrezim before her and, for the first time in her life, cast a corruption spell on a living being.

The demon screamed.

Thick black clouds formed around the dreadlord and dove in like biting insects, ripping and tearing at flesh. But then, instead of only doing that like it did for training dummies, the corruption spell began to carve lines across the dreadlord, glowing violet lines that burnt through his plate and etched into his wings. He screamed and clawed at his wings, trying to tear out the spreading lines. Sara was so transfixed by the spectacle she hardly noticed the agony curse on her had dissipated, or the pit lord shooting more fel blasts. The dreadlord rose into the air, flapping desperately even as holes were eaten through his wings and his armor turned from teal to dark violet. The talons on his wings and the claws on his hands turned to fangs dripping with saliva, and then the demon gave one last cry before his armor hollowed out, his flesh turned into vampiric bats, and they swarmed away before vanishing into shadow magic.

Sara looked down at her hand, still engulfed in dark fog, and blinked.

Then she ran for the wizard tower, felfire blasts raining down into Nethergarde. Thankfully no infernals came to attack her and she made it to the tower and sealed herself in without further incident. Unfortunately, the tower was starting to _burn._

There weren't many people inside, since most of the mages were out in the field fighting off the demons, and losing horribly because _that was a damned pit lord!_ The inside of the wizard tower was filled with bookshelves on all sides, most of them probably devoted to combat magic. Tables filled with scrolls littered the floor, and a stairwell wound up dizzyingly to the top. She could see ten mages at the moment, their arms in casts as they recovered from injuries. All of them were busy casting frost spells on the spreading blaze that was consuming bookshelves and steadily opening a hole to the outside world.

"Who here can cast a portal to Dalaran?" she demanded as though she had any authority, deactivating her gem. "We're evacuating!"

Two mages, a man and a woman, raised their hands. The others either continued trying to put out the fire or stared at her incredulously. She looked at the man, and nodded. She only needed him.

They were powerful mages, but they'd spent mana putting out the fires, they were injured, and they weren't expecting her to release a shadow nova almost point blank into their midst. The darkness briefly suffocated the inferno, but before she could even release more magic they were blazing again.

 _Whoosh!_ One surge of eldritch magic blasted into a few of the mages, instantly killing them. The others recovered and started to summon arcane magic, but another lash of power put them down. The man she'd chosen had been tossed into a table by the shadow nova, and into a bookshelf by the tail end of her following casts. She charged at him and placed both hands on either side of his head.

He was ugly, with crooked teeth and pallid skin. His hair was messy and brown, and his eyes went wide as she channeled shadow magic into his head. She didn't exercise caution and simply started forcefully reworking his thoughts. It was the same thing she'd done to the succubus, but far less controlled and _much_ hastier. She probably ruined some vital processes connected to the liver and kidneys but she didn't care. He was loyal in seconds.

"Climb upstairs and open a portal to Dalaran there!" she shouted, already running for the stairs. He followed after her with a thousand yard stare, the fires tickling his heels right as he got on the steps.

Up. Right. Left. Up. Behind. Up. Sara wound her way up, and up, until she was at the top level of the tower with the wooden floor creaking beneath her feet. From a window she could see that everything had gone to hell. The annihilan was inside, the soldiers were forced back to the barracks. Infernals hailed from the sky and were busy bashing everything in sight. The _thud thud thud_ downstairs was proof that one had found its way to the wizard tower and it was only a matter of time before the whole place was on fire.

The mage she'd ensnared took the final step and instantly began casting. Arcane runes flooded in from around his feet and into the silver-blue orbs in his hands. Sara stepped to the side and looked down the steps. There wasn't an infernal inside - yet - but felhounds were charging up the stairs, led by a felguard. Over channeling her magic into vibrant emerald again, she fired a single shot straight down and cut through the steps. With a horrible series of cracks, the demons fell down into the inferno below.

She turned back to the mage and began working her magic on his mind again. He'd be dead from smoke inhalation in a few minutes, but she wasn't willing to risk any loose ends. She found the speech center and connected it to the part of the brain stem that controlled heartbeat. The moment he uttered a word, his heart would stop. It wasn't murder, he was going to die anyway so it was _fine._

The portal was nearly complete, if the ringing of arcane energy was anything to go by. "When I'm through," she ordered. "Close the portal and say 'Hello'. Do _not_ speak until then." He nodded, and continued to cast. Sara sent a few more shadow blasts downstairs to handle some flying demons, but by the time the portal to Dalaran _finally_ tore itself open the fire was roaring dangerously close, it was hard to see through the smoke streaming around her barrier, and the wooden floor was starting to glow ominously.

"Time to go," she muttered. Then Sara took a deep breath, and canceled her shield.

Withering heat and the smell of campfires she'd never gone to assaulted her. She nearly gagged on the scorching air, looked at the portal and took a step towards it.

 _CRACK!_ The tower _tilted_ , the floor beneath her feet lurching up and throwing her to the ground. Her hands burned, but she scrambled back up and ran uphill to the portal and threw herself in with reckless abandon.

She let loose a breath when the heat and smoke vanished, replaced with silver and teal arcane energy that surged around her like a river. The same sensation of falling came upon her, and she took the moment to relax and calm her pounding heart. She did it. She nearly died several times but she'd gotten out of Nethergarde and, hopefully, everyone there would think she died in the action. But there were problems. She had no money, no real plan on how to get to Ulduar, _and_ all her work had gone up in smoke thanks to the infernal. Still, that was a worry for the future.

For the time being, Sara went limp in the portal's embrace and allowed it to carry her to Dalaran.


	18. Chapter 17: Homeward Bound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Talgath the Inexorable

He swept his eyes across the land, mouth set into a grim line. All around him, the military engine of the Burning Legion sprawled across the land, befouling the land and plaguing the sky. Far in the distance, he could see the ruins of Nethergarde Keep, and he let himself smirk.

It had taken long enough to break them down, but with the pit lord Argolash's arrival the Alliance could not hold. Unfortunately, their surprise attack was all that had let them smash the fortress, and they'd expended most of their infernals in bombarding Nethergarde. Dreadmaul Hold would be easier to take now that they didn't need to focus on both the Alliance _and_ the Horde, but they still needed time to regain their forces. Time the Alliance could use to fortify a base further north.

They were behind schedule, they were the weakest link. The northern forces had already reached the Undercity. The armies in Northrend were holding Wintergrasp and wreaking havoc upon the Dragonflights. Those demons who had gone to Kalimdor were spreading out from the Barrens rapidly, and leading the Kingslayers on a wild goose chase through Dire Maul. But Doomlord Ku'rozal was still in the Blasted Lands. Kil'jaeden wanted the invasion accelerated, and so Talgath had come.

His duties consisted primarily of keeping Argolash from running off on his own and getting blown up.

The eredar lord stroked his chin and turned left, walking forward. The total destruction of the Alliance forces in the region was good, but ransacking the keep had revealed something rather... unnerving. Somehow, the humans had taken control of a succubus, permanently.

Talgath walked across the black-scourged land towards where a nathrezim held the enthralled sayaad. She sat on an elevated boulder, staring off into space while the dreadlord channeled psychic magics into her head, inspecting the damage the mortals had done to her.

"What is the damage and what is the source?" Talgath asked once he'd arrived. "Their warlocks are incapable of doing this."

"Right you are, my lord," the dreadlord Lorthiras said. "The damage is severe. She has no motivation and is unflinchingly loyal to anybody who speaks to her, including mortals. I do believe I _have_ encountered such magic before, long ago before the Burning Legion existed. This is the work of the Old Gods and their servants."

He growled. "Old Gods? Preposterous."

"Yet that is the magic that did this to her. I suspect a Twilight's Hammer cultist infiltrated their army and lobotomized her with their magic. The changes are deep, it will take a long time to reverse the damage."

"But you _can_ reverse it," Talgath said, pleased. "How long do you estimate it will take?"

"A few days I'm afraid. These changes are permanent otherwise, and it takes a lot of magic to permanently change a mind like this. We do not possess Old God magic. However I can assure you that within a week, she will be back to normal and can tell us all about who did this to her."

"Very well. Come to me when you have succeeded." Talgath turned and stomped away from the nathrezim, allowing him to continue his work. He frowned. Old God magic. It was likely that whatever cultist had infiltrated Nethergarde was now dead. However it was also likely that they had slipped away in the confusion. Talgath would not be satisfied until he saw a body, and truth be told he was nervous. The Legion was mighty, but the Old Gods were beyond them. Small fortune they were chained beneath the land. Their mind magic was beyond all reckoning...

... no. It was absurd to fear this cultist. They were a mortal, dabbling in magics they hardly understood. That it was Old God magic they dabbled in mattered not. They were not an Old God. If they were not dead already, then they would be soon.

* * *

Sara

At last, the shimmering arcane light about her began to flow down like watercolors. Sara braced herself for landing, but when the world returned and she found herself in the Violet Citadel of Dalaran, she fell down and collapsed to all fours as a sharp pain flared in her legs. The air fled her lungs and she whined pitifully, grasping her burning legs.

A few mages around her took notice of her and made to approach, but she waved them away.

"I'm fine," she breathed. "I'm fine. I had a portal scheduled and I had to run." She took another gasping breath. "I had to run _really_ far to get to it on time. Damn it," she whispered, trying to will the fire in her legs to subside.

With heavy legs she stomped her way forward and out of the Violet Citadel, into the streets of Dalaran, and found a bench to sit on. Once she slumped onto it, Sara finally allowed herself to take in the sights.

The streets were paved with purple cobblestones, and vibrated gently beneath her feet as the city hovered in the sky. The buildings were marble, with warm stained glass windows glowing from within. Every building was covered with banners in many hues of violet and silver and blue. The rooftops were brilliant royal purple hemispheres with gold trimmings, plopped on top of buildings with blue focusing gems sprouting from their apex. While not as crowded as it had been during the Northrend campaign Dalaran still saw a hefty amount of hustle and bustle, mainly from the spellcasting crowd, who flocked to the city of the magi to hone their skills.

Sara also noticed that it was unutterably cold. The bitter chill of Northrend, in winter, high in the sky, cut through her brown shirt and dress and sliced into her bones. Living most of her life in warm Elwynn had done nothing to prepare her for this.

A shiver lanced through her body and she brought her arms in to hug herself. She stood and, with shaking and pained legs, made her way to one of the wizards standing on the nearest street corner.

This one was a high elf much like that cultist Higris had been, with long pointed ears, glowing blue eyes, and cream skin. Unlike him, however, this one wore brilliant violet and blue robes with the eye of the Kirin Tor in the middle, and held a single staff in one hand. "H-Hello," she stammered to him. "I just came here through portal but forgot my jacket. A-Any idea where I can get something?"

He nodded. "You'll want Talismanic Textiles, over by the Magus Commerce Exchange. It's that way," he said, pointing down a few streets. "Take the first left, then the second right and you'll be in the Exchange, from there just look for the sign that says Talismanic Textiles. Though you might also want Legendary Leathers for something thick, it's in the same area so if you can find one you can find the other. Oh goodness hold still for a moment." He held up the hand not gripping the staff and the blue aura of frost magic, complete with snowflakes and ice sharks glimmering into existence, wrapped around his fingers.

At the same moment, a whirlwind of ice and snow blew around Sara. For a moment the temperature dropped and her muscles locked up painfully, but then the magic faded from sight and warm but stagnant air rushed over her. "Frost ward, you looked awful miss. It'll only last for half an hour though, so I suggest you hurry."

She nodded her thanks, still shivering. "Thank you f-for your directions, sir." She brought her hands up and blew into them. Sara walked away from him and towards the Magus Commerce Exchange, however once the mage was out of sight she turned the exact opposite direction and went to cut through the center of Dalaran. As she passed, she couldn't help but notice the radiant golden statue in the middle of the fountain, with Tirion Fordring raising the Ashbringer high, complete with soldiers around him.

It was pretty, she supposed.

While the frost ward was still active, Sara made her way as quick as she could towards the southern end of Dalaran. She needed to get to Ulduar, and that meant getting to the Storm Peaks. She needed supplies, she needed transportation, and to get those she needed money. She didn't have money however, having left all of it in Stormwind.

The solution was, obviously, to mug someone.

That, however, provided problems of its own. For starters Sara had never mugged anybody, and she didn't want to even consider using her distraction gem, radiating its magic out in all directions, in the middle of Dalaran, city of the Kirin Tor. She certainly didn't trust her own stealth abilities to do so the hard way, even in the seedy Underbelly of Dalaran. That left her with reverse-mugging someone, which also had problems of its own. She was in Dalaran, so thieves and cutthroats undoubtedly had no small amount of antimagic.

The other option was to mind control someone, but she needed them to stay still for that and unless she could find someone on their own to knock out... turning the tables on a mugger it was!

She passed by the statue of Tirion and, after some traveling, arrived near the south-eastern edge of Dalaran. Sara knew what she was looking for, and she was on a timer before the frost ward ran out. There was a chance she could sweet talk another guard into giving her another cast, but she didn't want to rely on their charity. Sara walked along the wall, looking for a way down into the slums of Dalaran. There was one door... no. No. No. No. Maybe... no.

Finally, she found the entrance. There was a little sliver in the glistening walls of Dalaran, leading into a dull world of green tiles and frozen water. The opening clearly wasn't an accident, it was a smoothly polished semicircle so clearly she was supposed to be able to go down. Sara paused at the entrance and allowed a shiver to go through her. She adjusted her pose and her eyes. She was not Sara Smithers, Magister of Stormwind, on a mission to Ulduar. She was a scared young woman, who'd gotten lost in the Underbelly and didn't know how dangerous it was.

Sara stepped inside, looking around nervously. It was dark, with light supplied only by a few errant torches on the walls. She wandered, going down slick, icy ramps until she was in the Underbelly proper. A stream of sewage ran in the middle of a circular tunnel, forcing her to wrinkle her nose in disgust. More pipes fed into the run off. Rats scurried away from her, and carrion insects hurriedly buzzed out of her way. The ceiling was dark gray stone, supporting the glamorous city above. The air felt slimy and ill around her, and she heard naught but the trickle of sewage, her own footsteps, and the noises of animals struggling to get out of her sight.

Look left, look right. Shiver. Hunch. Arms hug herself. She simply oozed worry and a lack of confidence. All she needed to do now was wait for someone to 'jump' her. She'd need to be quick, though.

Sara avoided a few tunnels that lead to the central chamber of the Underbelly, instead wandering down corridors alone. She saw a few denizens of the Underbelly, scraggly looking people of all races clothed in little more than rags, with a smell to rival the stream of sewage. Sara looked away from them, lest she make eye contact, but none of them seemed to follow her. None of them were on their own either, so mind control was still out.

"Come on, where is it?" she whispered to herself, turning back from a dark dead end. She visited another dead end, and then three others, but in none of them did anyone attempt to rob her. A few times she thought someone was getting up to make an attempt, but they were just making themselves comfortable or going somewhere else in the Underbelly.

How hard could it be to get robbed? Honestly, she wasn't even that intimidating of a targe -

Something sharp and oh so cold pressed to her throat. "Hands in the air," a rough voice said in accented Common.

"Okay, okay," she whimpered, while internally grinning. Finally. Now she just had to pull this off. Sara held both her hands up. The thug kept the knife at her throat, but began patting her down, looking for anything to steal. The joke was on him, she was broke.

What she did next was incredibly risky, with a knife at her throat, and the buzzing in her veins was proof of it. Normally when she conjured her shadowy barrier, it formed at its set distance immediately and thickened. Now, however, she needed to form it right in the gap between her neck and the blade - which was microscopic - and expand outwards. It wasn't anything she could visualize. She needed to rely entirely on the math.

Green, purple and black shadow magic rippled across her hands for a split second and then, in the gap between the weapon and her skin, her iridescent shadowy barrier formed and ballooned outward. The thug was thrown back from her as it snapped open to full size, and the knife clattered to the ground.

She spun around, more Old God magic at the ready to rip his mind apart. Now she could see who her would-be attacker was. He was a blood elf, so his skin was just as pale as a high elf's, but his eyes burned demonic green. His gray, patchwork clothing was in tatters and he looked like he hadn't had a good meal in days, but that was about to be the _least_ of his concerns.

Then he threw his hands into the air and summoned arcane energy.

A rush of air heralded a much more intense rush of mana. A silver ring formed on the ground and blue motes condensed from the air, all of which collapsed into the blood elf's chest as arcane runes flashed around him. Sara fell forward as a good chunk of her own magic was torn from her body, and the rest was destabilized, placing it beyond her use and the magic she'd gathered trickled away.

Oh.

Sara stepped back and grabbed his knife, holding it ready with one hand. All she had to do was wait until her magic came back. And with her shield active that was easy.

He cast another spell and her own shield vanished, appearing around him instead.

_Oh come on!_

Sara backpedaled as the mage held up his hands. Slowly, embers began to coalesce in his palms, but then they quickly built into a fully formed fireball in his left hand. It shot out at her much faster than she expected, so Sara threw herself to the ground at lightning speed. Even so, she felt it burn the hairs off her neck. Even worse, there was no cover and she was still silenced.

She charged at him.

Sara did not think, even for a second, that she could break through her own barrier. However, she didn't need to. All she had to do was push him over onto his back and that would but her valuable time until she could use magic again. She lifted her right leg and kicked the barrier as hard as she could.

The blood elf didn't budge, and Sara fell to the ground with what felt like a sharp hammer-blow traveling up her bones. She clenched her teeth together not to scream, and the mugger brought his hands together and began forming a frost spell. When she saw him about to thrust his hands at her, Sara rolled to the side and let the cone of icy winds batter the ground where she'd been a moment before.

Then her magic returned.

Still on the ground she grinned and reached her magic into his mind. Before he could counterspell her, before he could polymorph or do anything, she reached the brain stem and stopped his heart and lungs from functioning.

He brought a hand to his chest in confusion, mouthed some words in another language, then toppled over like a statue.

Sara scrambled back to her feet, wincing in pain, and began to dispel the dark shield over his corpse. After a few seconds it went down, and she knelt over his body and searched for anything.

It was sloppy, she had to admit. She should've paralyzed him and ordered him to give her everything of worth he owned. Plus, muggers weren't likely to have much money of their own. She had also taken her magic for granted and just _assumed_ she could cast her way out of anything, but this time there was nobody around to help her. Last time she'd been against an army of qiraji and an obsidian destroyer, not a half starved mage, but next time she might not be so lucky.

She didn't find much on him, which was more than she expected to find. A grand total of twenty silver, which wouldn't go far in a city like Dalaran. Still... maybe she could work something with that. First step, though, was to get out of the Underbelly and hope not a lot of the smell followed her.

Leaving her meekness behind, Sara retraced her steps and found herself climbing the ramp back up within minutes. The frigid air of Dalaran blasted into her again, so that meant her frost ward had faded away some time during her escapade in the Underbelly. However, she already knew where she wanted to go, and after getting directions from another guard mage - and another frost ward after she emphasized her shivers - she was on her way to Runeweaver Square and the inn it held.

Legerdemain Lounge. It was a welcoming enough inn, she supposed, though nothing like she'd ever been to. The floor was, instead of wooden boards polished to a shine, made of colored rocks carved into geometric shapes, arranged into inscrutable, meaningless patterns. The inn was shaped like an arc of a circle, with entrances at either end. On the inner end of the 'arc' was the table behind which the innkeeper worked, and behind _that_ were the beautifully etched windows.

There weren't a lot of tables, but the ones that the inn had all had plenty of seats, likely to encourage mingling. Each table was an oval made of glass, with a smaller oval cloth in the middle with candles, condiments, and plates already laid out. Underneath each table was a circular purple rug, and if she didn't know better she'd have thought the chairs were solid gold. Blue crystals in the ceiling provided light, and stairs at the 'outer' part of the arc led upwards to what was probably the second floor, where rooms for the wealthier patrons were held. Some of the tables were occupied, but over all there weren't many people.

Sara's eyes caught sight of a man in Kirin Tor robes sitting at a table by himself. He had a rather large meal before him, so he'd likely still be there for a while. The meal must've also cost a pretty copper, so he was probably well off. Well off enough to afford a room. He was her best bet, he was her target.

She went to the innkeeper and offered the woman a bright smile. "Hi there!" she said. "I'm new in Dalaran, what kind of food are you selling here?"

The older woman, with graying brown hair and an alarming amount of laugh lines, smiled at her. "Well we have all sorts of things! For seventeen silver you have one of either sweetened goat milk, seal whey, goat cheese, flatbread, or salted venison. For twenty two silver some basted caribou, potato bread, honeymint tea, or hardcheese. What would you like?"

The twenty two silver options were all out, so it would have to be seventeen silver choices. Sara made as if to consider. "Hmm... I'll have just a slice of venison."

"Anything to drink with it?" the innkeeper asked as Sara began fishing the coins out of a pocket in her robes.

"Nah, just had a lot to drink," she lied, putting seventeen silver onto the table counter.

The older woman counted them out. "Five, ten, fifteen, seventeen. Alright, here you go!" She took the money and leaned under the table. Coins clattered, then she pulled out something white and red. Once she stood, Sara could see it more clearly. It was a white cloth with a slab of cooked meat on it. "Enjoy your meal, miss."

"Thank you!" Sara chirped, taking it in hand. It was warm through the cloth, and the smell of herbs and spices wafted up from the venison. She already knew her target but turned around, made an uncertain noise as she looked at the three tables, and eventually started towards the one with the man she'd singled out.

There was a plate with utensils already out for each seat, and she chose the one across from him. "Hi, mind if I sit here?" she asked in a friendly tone with a happy smile.

He waved a hand. "No please, go ahead," he said through a mouth full of cheese.

Sara sat down and took a deep breath to prepare herself. She'd only get one shot at this. It had to go _perfect._ "Thanks! This is my first time in Dalaran so I'm still pretty, errr, you know?" She took care to make her voice as conducive to conversation as possible. She needed to get him _talking._

He looked up and, while he didn't huff a laugh, Sara _did_ catch a light pull on his eyelids that indicated mirth.

Humor, okay then.

"Yeah, I know. So what're you doing in Dalaran?"

"Well I work for this little inscription store in Stormwind." She sliced off a bit of her venison with a knife and stabbed it with her fork. "I'm doing an apprenticeship for Miss Rothauler, and she wanted me to come here to get some Ink of the Sea. Got turned around a bit, and now here I am." She shrugged. "Well there're worse places to get lost."

"You're an inscriber?" he asked. "Don't meet a lot of people in that profession."

"Well, I'm Katherine," she lied, extending a hand and plopping the slice of venison into her mouth.

"Antonilon," he said, shaking her hand. "Pleasure to meet you."

"You too!" She swallowed her food. "So enough about me, what're you doing here?"

"Oh, just passing through," he said. "I'm a researcher in the Kirin Tor. I've been working on the Karazhan Leyline problem, and I'm passing through Northrend to see the resonance constants of the ley lines here."

She sat up, part of her genuinely interested. "You're working on the Karazhan Leyline problem?" she said excitedly. "How's it coming along?"

It was his turn to groan. "It is exactly as hard as everyone makes it out to be. But you know the Oculus Convergence Paradox? I think the way around it has something to do with the soil density around Coldarra compared to Deadwind pass, as well as latent Titan energy and rate of magic flow. It's just a hypothesis right now though."

They continued to talk back and forth about his work. Sara didn't know too much about the Karazhan Leyline Problem, it had always been far beyond her abilities, but she knew enough to make polite small talk, slowly pushing him in the desired direction with little prods that suggested that _Katherine_ was very interested.

"Do you have any notes with you? I'd love to see what you've done." She took another few bites. Sara just needed to get him alone. If she could get him alone...

He glanced at her, unamused. "Why, gonna steal my work?" he asked half-jokingly, finishing his food.

She rolled her eyes. "You got me. I'm going to memorize your notes and go on to solve the Karazhan Leyline problem all on my own."

"Alright alright, come on. I'm staying in a room for the day and I've got my notes on the dresser."

_I've got you now,_ she thought. Sara finished her meat and stood. "Lead on, mister researcher."

He laughed. "This way," he said, pushing in his chair. Sara followed him as he walked to the stairwell in the outer arch and went up it. The second floor had the same intricate design as the first floor of the Legerdemain Lounge. There was a hallway, and from it branched several doors to several rooms. Antonilon lead her to the third one down and opened it. "Ladies first."

"Oh ladies yourself," she said before catching her irritation and forcing it down. The inside of the room was decorative, but she was so close to her goal she didn't spend much time thinking about it. Bed, shelves, books. Big deal. She turned back to Antonilon. "So where're these notes? I'm just dying to see what you've got."

"They're over there on that shelf," he said, closing the door. He walked forward and passed Sara, and the moment his back was to her she struck.

It was quick and it was efficient. A quick jab to the brain stem, and he was instantly asleep. Sara caught him by the armpits and lowered him to the floor. He stirred and snorted, but before he could wake up she cut a few of the mind links and he was suddenly unable to wake up. She stood up from him and inspected the door. It was unlocked, something she quickly rectified.

Time to rob him blind.

Like a silent tornado she rifled through his bookbags, through the drawers, through his pockets, through the leather bag slung on the floor. She ended up pocketing just shy of ninety-eight gold, which was more than enough for what she was going to do. Her entire body tingled. She was actually doing it. Sara was actually whole-heartedly robbing someone in broad daylight, and nobody was going to question it because who in their right mind would think to check for Old God magic? Still, one more loose end.

She couldn't just outright kill Antonilon. If she went back downstairs there might be questions, especially if he didn't come back down. If she left the inn with no incident, eventually he would be found dead, and then she'd have a bounty on herself. Sara would have a head start, but it was a mess she wasn't keen on getting involved in. The best solution was to get him to come back down with her, and for them to part ways, and for him to not care at all that he'd been robbed.

There were a few ways of going about that. Targeted amnesia was possible in theory, but she didn't know enough about how memories were stored to go that route. Extreme lethargy was another possibility, especially if she linked it to his sleep center to make it pass after he went to sleep, but that had the possibility to backfire. The most foolproof plan was to simply make him exceptionally loyal to her, tell him what to do, and then go from there.

She'd done it to the succubus, and she'd done it to the dead mage in Nethergarde. Now she needed to do it to him. The good news was she had plenty of time to get it right, so she knelt by his head and began.

Break a link here, grow a link there, rearrange one over there. She whispered to him now and again with orders, and saw how he responded to them and with that information narrowed in on where the mental lines dictating his loyalty resided. Plick, pluck, pluck. Her breath came sharply and the cold air of Northrend, even inside, made her shiver. Minutes passed, ticking by on a cuckoo clock that came with the room.

Sweat beaded her brow and her mana pooled ached, but after an hour she finished up the loyalty spell. She stepped away from him and made a change so he could once again wake up normally, then plucked at that string to actually wake him up.

Antonilon didn't jerk awake, but rather groaned and slowly forced himself to stand up. "Oh man, what happened? I was..." He turned around to face Sara and, since he'd seen her, he was instantly undyingly loyal to her.

"Don't cast magic, don't make any moves to harm me, and stay in that spot," she said, extending her eldritch magic again to read his thoughts.

He froze up. "Okay." ' _I'll do that',_ she heard.

"Also, don't speak. In a few moments we are going to go downstairs. We'll talk a bit, pretending we were talking about your research up here. Then I will leave, and you can return to what you were doing before. You will not mention me to anyone, you will not care that you are missing nearly one hundred gold, you will carry on life as if we never met and you never possessed that money, or you lost it. Once we go downstairs you are allowed to talk, and allowed to cast magic, but you can still do nothing that would bring harm of any kind upon me. Nod if you understand."

He nodded. _'I understand,_ ' he thought.

"Good. Hold still." She pushed her magic into his head again, this time to undo a few changes. He would still be loyal to her, but the links that would make him undyingly loyal to anyone he saw would have to go. Luckily breaking it was easier than building it, so it only took a minute or so before she could safely relax her Old God magic. "Let's go," she said.

They left the room and walked down the stairs. As they did, she started to make more magical talk with him, but most of it was empty chatter. Then they reached the first floor and she took a few steps from him.

"Alright, I'll see you around," she said, turning her back to him and walking at a leisurely pace outside into the streets of Dalaran.

A chill wind nearly blew her off her feet, but she recovered, wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. She still remembered where the Magus Commerce Exchange was, so she pushed herself north through the thin crowds. She eventually found herself in a single street that arched back into the main body of Dalaran, and on all sides were shops with signs hanging out. One was a forge. Another was a greenhouse. But the one she was looking for was Legendary Leathers.

As much as Sara would have liked to go to Ulduar wearing a skirt, or a dress, that simply wasn't an option. Warm, heat-retaining pants it was. She also got a heavy tunic and the thickest jacket they had, plus a bag to hold her belongings. It wasn't an enchanted one that was larger on the inside, that was out of her price range, but it'd have to do. She stuffed her old clothes into it and left Legendary Leathers.

Sara braced herself to be knocked around by the horrific cold, but instead it only nipped gently at her face. She tucked her nose behind her fur collar so that only her eyes were visible, and took a few testing steps around the area. Her clothes kept in the heat perfectly, but they'd be put to the test once she got to the very northern reaches of the Storm Peaks.

She bought another Sparkling Stormjewel from a jewelcrafting shop, just in case her current one didn't work on iron dwarves and iron vrykul. She also got some conjured rations that were small and had great amounts of nutrition in them, but tasted like ass. Some shades to prevent snow blindness, and a paper and pencil. Lastly, she bought a hearthstone bound to the Hero's Welcome Inn. After her shopping spree Sara still had seventeen gold left, so while at the inn she bought some milk, downed it, and then left for Krasus's Landing to set off to K3 in the mountains.

Krasus's Landing was, of course, all the way on the other side of Dalaran. She'd left Nethergarde around noon and that meant she'd arrived at Dalaran in the morning, but by the time she'd reached the building that held the stairs that _went_ to the Landing, the sun burned the sky with flame and cast elongated shadows on the purple tiles.

She climbed the stairs and stepped out into Krasus's Landing, and her jaw dropped.

The area was enormous, and all the way at the end was a single high elf man with hippogriffs behind him. Krasus's Landing was a giant marble circle, with a few pillars reaching up around the edges. From where she stood Sara could see more of the Northrend sky than she could before now that there were no towers obstructing her view. Pinkish clouds drifted in the breeze, and far off in the distance Sara could see a colossal tree, made entirely of glistening white crystal and as large as Dalaran itself, sprouting from the earth. An aurora, green and blue, streaked across the sky and promised only to grow more visible as the sun went down. The wind whistled between trees and howled as it wound between the pillars.

Sara approached the man, who was also dressed for the weather, and payed the seventy five silver for passage to the Storm Peaks. Like in Kalimdor the hippogriffs were all unruly and afraid to go anywhere near her, but she eventually got herself saddled. After a few loops around Krasus's Landing to pick up breakneck speed, the hybrid bird shot off into the sky.

Once it had gotten a fair distance from Dalaran, Sara hazarded a glance behind her. The floating city was even more breathtaking with the sunset framing it. Ragged, uneven stone hung beneath the pillars, as if a giant had just come and scooped Dalaran out of a mountainside. The towers reached upwards, trying to grasp the aurora, while reflecting and refracting the sun through the many crystals in Dalaran. Sara smiled, then looked towards her destination.

The Storm Peaks.

The hardest part of her journey was ahead of her; getting money from Dalaran was easy in comparison. The Storm Peaks were utterly unforgiving and blew about with tremendous winds 24/7. Normally that would be something she appreciated, but it had a very good chance of killing her so she needed to get around them. During the Northrend Campaign, the archaeologist Brann Bronzebeard had set up an encampment near Ulduar that flight masters could travel to, however the outpost was now defunct and the closest she could get was the goblin city K3, waaay at the very south of the Storm Peaks.

Sara was _not_ going to trudge all the way through the mountains to get to Ulduar, so she was just going to have to assume control of the hippogriff and _force_ it to fly to Ulduar.

The mountains were tall. Even from here, the peaks reached far above Dalaran's highest point. She couldn't hear the howling winds, but as her mount circled around the perimeter of the mountains as it searched for an opening, she could easily see the billows of snow whipping about between crags. In fact, no. If she listened really closely, she _could_ hear the wind whistling, beating against the air. But the sound was coming from the wrong direction for some reason. No... no that wasn't the Storm Peaks' wind.

So what was behind Sara?

She turned around just in time to see what looked like an animated skeleton, tangled with a red lizard, smash into her.

The hippogriff squawked and fell out of balance, then began to plummet out of the sky. Sara screamed and drifted away, but the harness went tight and she didn't go too far from the hippogriff. Maybe if she could pull herself back and the animal righted itself...

The harness snapped.

A fresh scream sprinted out of her throat as she continued to fall. The sky and the ground tumbled in and out of her vision as she spun and the wind drowned out any noise and she was certain that this was it. This was her end. No shadowy barrier would save her, she couldn't reach her hearthstone, she was going to die. Even knowing there was an afterlife didn't comfort her. She was quite certain that she was not going to get the good endless-peace-and-harmony afterlife.

Then something grabbed her. Sara flailed and fought against it as sharp, merciless sickles closed around her prone form. Two wings _spread_ out far to her left and right, and when the creature grabbed her she was oriented to see the far, far too close ground coming up to her. She'd been getting ready to release a shadow nova and throw this creature off her, but seeing how disgustingly fast she was traveling parallel to the earth stilled her magic. The creature angled itself up and when the ground seemed close enough to touch, they finally began to climb again.

Now that imminent death wasn't a worry for her, Sara began turning her head back and forth to see what had grabbed her. Black claws attached to a scaly leg... scales everywhere. Pale underbelly. Flapping, membranous wings. Behind her there was a muscular tail with a spiked club.

She was in the clutches of a dragon.


	19. Chapter 18: Quid Pro Quo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

A dragon.

A damned _dragon!_

Irritation flared deep inside Sara's chest. Dragons. If she was right it was a _red_ dragon too, and that made a surge of directionless, meaningless anger tear through her for some obscure reason. It wasn't bad enough her mount was shot down and she was being flown off by a dragon, it just _had_ to be a member of the Red Flight. And to make matters worse there was _nothing_ she could do. After she nearly left a red smear on the ground the winged lizard had ascended back to a dizzying height, there was too much wind for her to communicate with the damn thing, plus she was moving around too much to do anything to its brain.

All that would've been tolerable, except they were also flying south, _directly away from Ulduar and there was still nothing she could do!_ She was trapped, optionless, the walls of machinations she had no influence on closing around her.

Sara miserably grabbed onto the scaled legs, which at times felt like they were about to puncture her with their claws, as the dragon flew south towards the mountains surrounding Dragonblight. It angled into a hole in the mountains and, through her wildly swinging perspective, Sara got a glimpse of what the Dragonflights looked like when they militarized.

They'd occupied a sizable nook surrounded by steep, snowy cliffs, something that couldn't have been good for the cold blooded reptiles. A lot of the dragons had taken mortal form to conserve space in the relatively small area. They walked around, carrying weapons or boxes of supplies in their arms. Drakonids and dragonspawn patrolled the area, and one smooth, circular pad of stone in the mountains seemed to serve as a launch pad for the dragons. Another pad, on the opposite side of that one, was likely the landing pad and it was to that circle of stone the dragon carrying her went.

Now that she had some reference points, she could conclude the dragon carrying her was just an adolescent, a drake. Said drake slowed down so that Sara could hear the dragons around her growling to each other in their native tongue, then she was brought lower to the ground and unceremoniously dropped. She had expected that and braced herself, but a flash of pain up both legs led her to fall flat on her ass. A _shock_ of powerful magic ran through her body, suffusing every inch of her skin with dark might and she let out a breath because she'd _never_ felt so powerful. She could do anything, overcome anyone!

Then a sick feeling in her stomach rose, and she threw up onto the ground.

Once she was done retching she groaned and shuffled away from the mess. Shaking, she stood up to find herself face to face with the drake that had dropped her.

Its face was long and it had an underbite of fangs as long as her index fingers, made more obvious by how its mouth was far longer than hers. Right above its two nostrils was a triangular horn, and its yellow, slitted eyes were on the sides of its head. Despite that, Sara didn't think it had any trouble looking ahead. Behind the top of its head began a crest of thicker, darker scales that formed armor all the way to the beginning of the tail. Along the start of the crest were three backwards-facing horns. The dragon's muscles were powerfully built even for its relative youth, and while the scales along its body were red like the sunset its underbelly, like the membranes of its large bat-wings, was tan. The joint of each wing had a large black talon, and the tail ended in a spiked club that could crush her head like a melon.

It stared at her, then opened its mouth. "Are you alright?" The voice was decidedly masculine and, while understandable, his Common was accented with rough, growling sounds. "That was a long fall and I'm not sure if the undead drake hit you on the head."

She frowned. "I'm fine, just a little shaken. Undead drake?"

"Yes, the demons have been making those. Err, hmm. Perhaps it'd be better if I took you to Taistrasza, follow me." The dragon began padding past her, but once Sara had to turn to keep looking at it he _changed._ A shimmer in the air collapsed around the drake, and he collapsed with it. Wings turned to robes, scales turned to skin and jackets, horns to hair and claws to nails. Sara looked around, then back at the human shaped drake, and huffed.

She still had no choice.

So Sara followed after the young man and made it a point to return the many, many curious stares she received. Luckily most of the dragons around her were preoccupied with their tasks so only a fraction looked at her. Though she did notice that a _lot_ of the 'mortals' in bronze clothing stared at her in disbelief. The drake that 'saved' her led her to a small tent, inside which four shapeshifted dragons of all four Flights gathered around a map of the surrounding region, talking animatedly in Draconic.

Her drake cleared his throat. "Taistrasza," he said, grabbing the attention of a high elf woman, a blue-robed orc man, a goblin woman, and a gnomish man with blonde hair. They exchanged some more words in Draconic, the drake raised a voice in surprise, and the high elf snapped something sharply. Several times Sara caught the word 'karkrun' in reference to herself. He looked down and nodded, then turned back to Sara.

"Follow me, I need to talk to you about how we met."

"She put you in charge of me and you're not happy about that," Sara guessed as he walked past her, all smug and confident in his dragon-ness.

He stiffened, but nodded and continued to walk.

Sara followed, hoping to eventually get at least some answers and, more importantly, a way back to her hippogriff. Dragons supposedly had incredible hearing, so she didn't hope to get privacy. Instead she asked, "So you crashed into me and knocked me out of the sky. Care to explain?" she growled.

He chuckled nervously. "Sorry about that. I was fighting a fel drake and we ended up separated from the rest of the fight. Bad luck we happened to hit you, its claws sliced right through the hippogriff's head. You were falling, I fireballed the harness and caught you. Then I flew you back here."

So he saved her, but it was his fault she needed saving in the first place. But there was something... "Fel drakes?"

He snarled, looking south. "The Legion's in Dragonblight and they're using their necromancy on us. It makes things... difficult. My apologies for knocking you out of the sky, not my proudest moment, heh," he said, finishing with a nervous laugh.

Sara stared at him, unimpressed. "Take me back to the hippogriff. I need it to get to the Storm Peaks."

He tilted his head to the side in an inhuman fashion and asked, "Why? Miss, I'm afraid your mount is dead."

"Well then how do you suggest I get to the Storm Peaks?" she asked. She was _not_ going to waste her hearthstone on going back to Dalaran _already_ just to get another hippogriff. How exactly was she going to explain it to the flight master? Plus, she might need the stone again later. "And I don't care that - " Oh no. She was going to have to tell them wasn't she? It was going to be Nethergarde all over again, except with dragons that stood a decent chance of _forcing_ her to stay.

"Care that it's dead? Why? It's not going to just..." the drake trailed off and his eyes widened. "You're a necromancer?"

Oh no. Not dealing with that. "No!" she snapped. "Of course I'm not a necromancer," she snarled, not caring how many dragons heard her. "But since it's apparently going to get out _anyway,_ I can resurrect the dead, so take me to the hippogriff so I can bring it back and get to where I'm going."

The disguised dragon gaped, the implication of her words clear. Several others around them stopped to glance at her. "You can... do that?"

She pursed her lips. "Yes. I can. So just bring me back to the crash and I can be on my way."

The dragon frowned and twiddled his fingers. "Actually if you're telling the truth, then you can be of tremendous use to us here. Nobody likes talking about it but we're getting - "

"Oh no!" Sara shouted, slight flickers of darkness flowing from her fingers. "Everywhere I've gone people have always been 'Oh can you revive our fallen? Oh can you please raise our dead? Oh please oh please oh please!' without fail!" That was an exaggeration but she didn't want to stick around resurrecting dragons when she could be going to Ulduar! She'd had enough things keeping her already! First it was getting drafted into the war, then it was getting held in Nethergarde like some sort of resurrection _machine,_ nearly dying to the Burning Legion, getting mugged in the sewers of Dalaran, and now, purely by chance a dragon _knocked her out of the sky._ She could've been in Ulduar weeks ago yet here she was!

"Please, please calm down," he urged with wide eyes.

Calm down? Calm down?! HE WANTED HER TO CALM DOWN?!

She probably needed to calm down.

Sara brought her hands, still leaking shadow magic, to her chest and took in a deep breath, then let it out. She took another breath, then focused the disguised drake with a disgusted look. "I'm calm. But I am still going to Ulduar, even if I have to - "

"What is going on here?" a man asked behind her.

She whirled around, perhaps not as calm as she claimed given the way her shadow magic pulsed hungrily. "What?!"

The man who'd snuck up on her was the blue robed orc, undoubtedly a blue dragon. His irises shimmered with arcane flows, his tusks were as large as he was muscled, and he was both bald and green. "Miss, we _all_ couldn't help but notice your problem. I realize you are upset, but you need to calm down before we can find a solution."

Sara glowered at the man and squared her shoulders, not letting go of her magic. "Or what?"

The orc lowered his head to give her the _'Seriously?'_ look Sara had given so many others. Then he stepped back and warped the world around him. He grew and grew and _grew,_ five fingers turning to three claws each as tall as Sara, skin and clothing turned to sky blue scales, baldness to horns, and then there was a fully grown blue dragon standing in front of Sara.

She had to crane her neck back all the way to meet his eyes, since he was now twelve yards tall. More if she counted the wings. His body was built similarly to the drake that had brought her here, but there was a skin flap down the neck, and spikes on the back of both 'elbows'. From the crest, instead of three horns in a line, two massive horns came out next to each other and went straight back, and in between them ran a line of five smaller horns. Every scale on the blue dragon's body bristled with arcane power and the occasional stray snowflake drifted out from between his alternating overbite/underbite fangs.

Taking a step back, she whispered a quiet, "Oh." Then she raised her left hand angrily and channeled more magic. Almost effortlessly it turned to a deathly green aura, and she wondered just how much magic standing on Northrend gave her. Dragon or not, she was going to blow a hole through his chest and anyone else who tried to keep her from Ulduar. And why not? Who cared if they were dragons? Standing here on Northrend, so close to Ulduar, so close to Yogg-Saron, she felt more powerful than she ever had in her entire life!

Except...

... except she kept thinking she could do that to everyone and rarely was it actually true. Plus this was a _blue_ dragon, who knew how much magic he knew about, or the other dragons in the area? To say nothing of how horribly she was outclassed physically.

"Fine." She released her hold on her magic and relaxed from her caster's stance. "Now what?"

The dragon shifted back into orc form and nodded. "I'm glad you are willing to be reasonable. Now, I think we can strike a deal. If it is indeed true that you can bring the dead back to life then we sorely need your assistance. In return for aiding an air strike, I think Derestrasz here," he said, motioning to the drake. ", can take some time out of his patrols to fly you to wherever you were headed, so long as it is not too far. Where was it?"

"Ulduar," she said, intrigued by the offer. "I was going to Ulduar. Exactly how long would I be held up here?"

"Not long, a day at the most. What are you looking for in Ulduar?"

"A weapon or spell, or allies of some sort that can put the hurt on the demons," she said. What she didn't say was _'Mainly it's because I suspect some of Yogg-Saron's power got embedded in my soul and C'Thun showed me a vision of the place so I'm going to listen to it.'_. "Things aren't going well in the Eastern Kingdoms, so I figured we need something with a little more kick."

The orc nodded. "Derestrasz, take her with you and grab a saddle and harness. You're taking her on your next air strike. Even if she lies about her powers she can provide assistance with her magic in more forceful ways, and I strongly doubt she's on the Legion's side."

'Derestrasz' stilled, then nodded. "Understood, Morigos. Follow me, uh, what was your name?"

To lie or not to lie? They were dragons, they'd probably be able to smell direct lies or something stupid like that. "Sara. And most of my magic comes from touching the ground." At the moment that seemed to be true. "If you want me to resurrect adult dragons you'll need me to be on the earth."

"Then he can fly you to the location," Morigos said. "But you will be in a combat zone, understand?"

She groaned. "I understand, I fought over in the Eastern Kingdoms too, now let's go." The sooner she got this over with the sooner she could finally, finally get to Ulduar.

The red drake saluted to the dragon one more time and then led Sara through the bowl-shaped camp towards the edge. There, stacked up in a heap, were several dozen saddles and harnesses for people to ride dragons with. He smoothly shapeshifted back into his dragon form - nearly slamming her in the gut with his tail club as he did - and picked out two that were his size.

"Alright," the dragon growled. "Um, help me put these on."

* * *

After much tugging, grunting, fire breathing and some shadow summoning, Sara was riding a dragon.

It was much better than the _first_ time she'd been flying with him, as this time she actually had a say in whether or not she fell. Derestrasz flew in the back of a whole group of multicolored drakes, and if their joking Draconic tones were anything to go by? Sara had the uneasy impression that, mentally, she was the oldest one there. Then there had come some signals, and then the ground lurched out from under Sara's feet as she left the outpost, and her belongings, behind to fly on the back of a so-called Wyrmrest Skytalon. She gripped the harness so hard her knuckles grew white under her jacket.

As Derestrasz angled up, Sara looked to the side for the odd view of the world being slanted, with the sky taking up far more than half of her field of vision. The stars were out in full force, and the northern lights snaked through the sky like magical ribbons. They flew south towards the Dragonblight, which was strikingly even more desolate than Silithus. Vast, uncaring plains of ice and snow stretched in all directions, with the only visible landmarks being the bones of dead dragons, picked clean by wind and scavenger. The aurora overhead colored the snow like paint. The wind howled in her ears, and the cold bit her face, but Sara couldn't help but smile. This detour wouldn't be as long as the others. Depending on how well Derestrasz could fly through the Storm Peaks, she might even _gain_ time.

There was also the enormous area of snow melted away, replaced by blackened land, demonic technology, and the marching armies of the Burning Legion. Sara blinked. It was a sizable demon encampment, and looking behind her she saw it wasn't the only one. No wonder even the dragons were having trouble, especially if the 'undead dragon' thing was true.

Sara's goal was simple. Derestrasz would put her on the ground near the fight, and she just had to get to the fallen dragons before the demons did. Then Derestrasz would pick her up, they'd get her bags, and be on their way to the Storm Peaks. Easy.

Sara frowned and summoned her shadowy barrier around herself. A shiver ran down Derestrasz's spine, but she was focused more on the circling creatures above the approaching Forge Camp. Skeletons. Giant dragon and drake skeletons, with lime webbing between their wings, a fel orb instead of a tail club, and choking green mist inside their ribs and eyes. Fel wyrms, fel drakes.

They hadn't been joking. Actual, undead dragons. She hoped there were more dragons coming because that was a _lot_ of animated skeletons.

Derestrasz suddenly _dipped_ and Sara's stomach went into her throat. Luckily there wasn't anything left in her stomach, so she could focus enough to start unstrapping the harness and, when Derestrasz pulled back up from the ground so that she was almost stationary, she jumped off.

This time her burning legs went unnoticed because of the rush of sheer power that pulsed into her. She let out an excited breath and cracked the ice with an unrefined shadow blast. She could get used to this.

"Just resurrect the dragons, Sara," she whispered to herself, watching the swarm of dragons engage the skeletons high above. Meanwhile, from cleverly concealed passages in the mountains, dragonspawn and drakonids flooded into the area and engaged the demons on the ground. "That's all you need to do," she said, moving towards the Forge Camp.

The Forge Camp was heavily defended, with felguards by the dozens, fel cannons ringing the perimeter, and all manner of mechanical portals spewing in reinforcements. Mo'arg and gan'arg placed additional mechanical reinforcements down, and she caught more than one dreadlord in the fray. However, the dragons had clearly anticipated the resistance, and came prepared to knock down the Forge Camp in one swoop. Not that it would matter all that much; Forge Camps were a symptom, not the disease.

Sara's feet left the ice and snow and landed onto the black stone. At that moment, half a dozen fel cannons aimed their broiling faces at her.

She winced, but forced herself to not flinch as they launched sickly green pyroblasts at her. Each one slammed directly into her shield with a massive burst of felflame, pushing her back. Then the volley ended and, while the smoke still obscured their sights, she pushed on. There was another salvo of fel bursts, but she ducked underneath them and by then, she'd come within range of the fel cannons. She curled over, racing darkness swirling inside of her arms.

Then she let loose a shadow nova.

It had very little physical force behind it, but the thick darkness ate away at the cannons' gears and crumpled their grills, and when it passed most of the ones firing at her had collapsed into piles of scrap. The others were so structurally damaged they were of no threat, but a shadow bolt each took care of them to be sure.

Sara held up both hands, violet magic swirling in them, and panted hungrily. She looked around the Forge Camp, searching for anyone who _dared_ challenge her.

There was nobody; all of the demons were engaged with the land-bound dragons, bitterly forcing them back while the stray bolt of fire or poison crashed from above. While she kept looking for someone to blow to pieces, the first drake died.

They fell with a keening roar and were clearly dead the moment they hit the ground, on the other side of some demon forge. Then, out of the darkness, three gan'arg teleported around it and began channeling fel energy onto its corpse.

Oh no.

Sara sprinted at them, and once the gray skinned, stunted demons were in range she let a wave of unfocused darkness wash over them and interrupt the spell. They screamed in high-pitched demonic as they were thrown off the green drake, and Sara skidded to a halt before she tripped over its tail.

One high-powered shadow bolt took down each of the gan'arg, though one did manage to throw some kind of felsteel bomb at her that obscured her vision with smoke and left her ears ringing. After that, Sara focused her magic on the green drake.

It was the largest thing she'd ever resurrected, and the demons' work had already dissolved away a lot of the flesh on its left side. It laid in a halo of its own blood, and Sara gritted her teeth as she began reaching for the dragon's soul.

The slippery thing hadn't gotten far, but it held so much more magical 'weight' than Sara expected. She dug in her feet and began pulling it back. Death energy radiated around her hands and poured out of the dragon's scales, and after a mere ten seconds she pulled the soul back to the body and fixed up the damage. She let go of the magic and took a deep breath, only then realizing she'd been holding her breath.

The drake gasped and looked around with closed eyes, until it faced Sara. "I revived you, get back up there!" she shouted. The dragon nodded and ascended back into the air. A glance up confirmed for Sara that the Dragonflights had, in fact, brought more drakes than just Derestrasz's group. Even a few fully grown dragons, which dominated the air and cast vast shadows upon the land.

Another drake hit the ground. Sara groaned, but ran towards it.

Like the other drake, gan'arg materialized around it and began filling it with fel energy. Just like the other drake they were no match for her, especially with the other demons busy pushing back the dragons on the ground. Sara resurrected the bronze drake, and with the additional power of standing on Northrend it was hardly more challenging than bringing back a night elf. And after all the reviving she'd done in the past week-and-a-half her mana pool had gotten quite deep.

However, the moment that drake was back up two more fell down and started to be revived as fel drakes. Sara groaned, but went for the one closer to her. It was the same procedure. Wipe out the diminutive gan'arg, resurrect the dragon. Sadly, the moment that she'd gotten the blue drake up and flying, she turned around to see the bony skeleton of a dragon take to the air as well.

"Damn it," she breathed, running over to where the next dragon had already died.

While the battle on the ground and in the air rage, Sara snuck about and revived as many dragons as she could reasonably get to. Now and then, demon reinforcements tried to kill her, but either she or the dragons always killed them first. But she couldn't be everywhere at once, and far too many drakes were brought back into undeath. But the dragons were winning, slowly pushing back the demons and smashing first the fel cannons, then the forges, then the first of the portals.

Then a fully grown dragon died.

It was a blue wyrm, and smashed so close to Sara the blast of air knocked her and her shield back a few yards. Eventually she stopped herself, and sprinted back to the gan'arg that were already melting its scales with demonic magic. A few shadow bolts took them out, but then Sara was face to face with the body of a fully grown dragon that _she_ needed to resurrect.

She stopped by the overturned reptile's underbelly and took a deep breath, examining its claws, the horns, the splatter of blood around it. She brought both hands high above her head, squared her shoulders and rooted her legs, then brought her hands down and began the spell.

Finding the dragon's soul was easy. But then she closed her magic around it and started to tug, and even with her power boost it was like trying to push a mountain. A gasp of breath fled her lungs and she dug in her feet, pulling at the dragon's soul as hard as she could. A yellowish haze descended over the world, but slowly the spirit began to come back towards Azeroth. Sara growled and struggled, as if tugging a rope, pulling the dragon closer and closer as a river of green mist flooded out of the body's scales...

A doomguard smashed her aside.

Sara's magic cut out suddenly and the yellow fog over the world cleared away. She spun around, unharmed within her shield, and began casting a shadow bolt at the doomguard that stood twice her size.

The massive, winged demon cackled and pointed his scimitar at her. "Mortal girl!" Her shadow bolt flew, but he dodged aside with a wing motion. "You... are... DOOMED!" Thick shadow magic raced up his arms and along the scimitar, and Sara's stomach dropped out from underneath her. Before the doomguard could do anything more a drake swooped down and flew off with the demon, clawing him apart, but the damage was done. She glanced up, saw a pale blue skull above her head, and gulped. _That_ was going to hurt soon.

She turned back to the dragon and grabbed its soul again. Her arms burned with the effort of pulling it back and her eyes teared up as she growled, gasped, and panted trying to resurrect it, and in the meantime three more drakes died only to be revived under the Burning Legion's control. A few more demons tried to stop her, only to be knocked aside by drakonids and dragonspawn. Then, at last, she fused body and soul together, and the blue wyrm came back to life.

A feminine gasp came from the reptile's jaws and she raised her head, looking around frantically. "Wha - what?"

"I brought you back to life, now get back up there!" Sara panted, already running towards the nearest fallen drake.

The gan'arg were nearly finished, all that was left of the drake's flesh were a few scraps here and there, but luckily the emerald mist hadn't begun filling in yet. Sara didn't waste time with shadow bolts and instead released a massive shadow nova at them. She was too far to kill them, but it interrupted them long enough for her and the dragons, who were on the verge of victory, to kill them. After that she still had to revive the drake, _and_ heal the missing flesh, but after bringing back a fully grown dragon it was refreshingly easy. All she had to do was pull the soul back a short distance and -

The blue skull above her laughed, then vanished.

Sara's entire body, even through the jacket, froze like ice. Her legs were icicles and she fell over onto the solid ground. Her shadowy barrier cushioned the impact, but that hardly mattered because the dark chill went through her lungs, right to her heart.

The dragons around her, who were about to celebrate shutting down the Forge Camp, crowded around her. Blue scales, bronze scales, green scales, red scales. Sara's vision faded and her eyes began closing. Wings flapped. Draconic words were shouted, she hardly noticed. A lead weight settled on her chest and squeezed harder and harder, and she realized she wasn't breathing.

Her head swam and her chest ached. Something had gone horribly wrong. That skull, it was some kind of curse. She knew the type but it was so hard to think, her brain was filled with cotton...

Then something chimed loudly and swirled around her. She gasped and took a shuddering breath when something warm blossomed in her core, then that warmth grew hotter and hotter, then it reached her skin and Sara realized how _slimy_ and _does-not-fit-should-not-be_ the warmth was and she _screamed._

Sara sat straight up, head whipping around frantically to see the source of whatever had done it to her. The dragons had cleared a circle around her, but in front was a red drake - Derestrasz, unless another dragon wore a saddle - reared up on his hind legs with his wings flared out. On the tips of his wings green plasma, with leaves made of energy, swirled. Then the orbs of nature magic pulsed and strands of slimy green energy wove their way around Sara, like ants crawling on her skin and inside her body, lighting a fire inside of her that threatened to turn her to ash.

"Stop it!" she screamed hoarsely. "Stop it!" A lash of violet Old God magic struck at him, but her aim was off and it only blasted the already-tainted ground.

Derestrasz landed, slit pupils wide. "You're alright! You had us worried."

Sara shivered, but the nature magic running through her faded away and she could finally stand again.

Then she retched.

When she was done she made her way over to the drake she'd been busy resurrecting when the curse of doom hit. Her magic began its work again, but like a lost puppy Derestrasz padded after her. "Miss, wait! You nearly died just now, you need to take it easy."

" _Fuck you_ I need to take it easy," she snapped.

"I just saved your life," he reminded. "Are you really going to just throw it away again?"

"I'm fine!" she insisted, never mind the burn in her limbs or the little chill that remained in her chest, or how her arms shook with the knowledge that she had nearly died less than a minute ago. Sara lowered her left hand, then raised it to the sky and finished reviving the fallen red drake. "See?" she asked, turning on Derestrasz. It took a lot of effort not to start swaying. "Perfectly fine."

He stared at her, but nodded and spoke some Draconic to the still confused drake she'd just brought back to life. Sara spent some more time walking around the battlefield, resurrecting other fallen dragonkin, until everyone was back up. It was long work, and it left her almost bereft of mana, but in the end it meant a near total victory for the dragons. "If you insist. At any rate, Kilagosa says we're done here so we're headed back to base." He lowered himself next to her and extended his left wing out of the way. "Climb on."

"Yeah," she said, hopping on to the dragon's back. Her shaking hands found the straps of the harness and began weaving them together to secure her. Once she was done, she announced, "Alright, I'm done. Just get me out of here."

"Right away." Derestrasz flapped his wings and hopped up, the sudden jolt making Sara grunt. The ruined Forge Camp fell away behind her, though Sara glanced behind her to see, in addition to the drake's swaying tail, the damage the dragons had done.

The black stone was cratered and cracked, caked with ice in places. The fel cannons were rubble, the portals and forges were disfigured lumps of blackish metal. As they left, the icy glacier of the Dragonblight already seemed to be closing in on the demonic wound.

Once it was out of sight, Sara resummoned her shadowy barrier, just in case, and enjoyed the flight. If the dragons held to their word - and they probably would since they were goody two shoes dragons - she could _finally_ be on her way to Ulduar.

After around an hour, Derestrasz winged to the right and approached the border mountains. He squeezed through some tight canyons, and then arrived once again in the dragon camp. After a few circles to burn off his speed, the drake settled on the landing pad and Sara undid her harness. Once she was on the ground the red drake shapeshifted into a teenaged boy and led her to the leader tent. He motioned for her to stay outside and went in on his own. Sara took the opportunity to sit down and rest her legs, which ached after riding Derestrasz all the way back from the Dragonblight.

She... she actually did it. She had brought drakes and even an adult dragon back from the dead. They'd smashed a Forge Camp into scrap metal. They had actually struck a blow, however small, against the demons. Whatever unkind things she could say about the Dragonflights they certainly knew what they were doing. Maybe after finding whatever she was looking for in Ulduar she'd stay in Northrend to help them. The icy continent gave her a large amount of magic, and a resurrected drake was worth a lot more than a resurrected dwarf.

Eventually Derestrasz and the blue dragon from earlier, still disguised as an orc, came out and approached her. She stood and gave the orc a slight nod, to which he grinned in response. "It appears my faith in you was well placed, young one. With your aid a lot of our forces survived, and we can launch another attack soon. However a deal is a deal." He held up his left hand and, in a flash of arcane magic, summoned her bag to him and tossed it at her. She clumsily caught it and slung it over her back. "Derestrasz, take Sara here and fly her to Ulduar. Once done, come right back here for further assignment."

The red drake nodded. "Understood, Morigos." With a stretch and a shimmer, Derestrasz changed back to his true form. Sara wondered where the saddle had gone while he'd been transformed. "Whenever you are ready, miss Sara."

She popped one of her provisions - a flat, tasteless disk - into her mouth, grimaced at the flavor, and swallowed it. Then she swung herself onto the dragon's back and strapped herself in. "Let's go, sooner we get to Ulduar sooner I can find what I'm looking for and the sooner you can come back here."

 _Flap, flap._ Derestrasz again took off, circled around the camp a few times to build up speed, and then shot out of the dragon camp. In minutes he'd cleared the mountains and she was, once again, high above the Crystalsong Forest. In the distance she could barely make out the floating island of Dalaran, and to her right was one of the crystalline trees she had seen from afar, reflecting the brilliant night time aurora. And far, far ahead to the north, the mountains of her destination.

Derestrasz wasn't going so fast as to make the wind deafening yet, so he took the moment to say, "You should get some sleep! It's a long flight to Ulduar and you've done a lot. Relax, our harnesses are designed deliberately to keep anyone from falling off."

Maybe he had a point. She wasn't particularly tired - magic student, after all - but if she intended to go snooping around a Titan city, she needed to be as rested as possible. Careful to avoid his horns, Sara leaned forward to rest her head on the moving scales, and nodded off.


	20. Chapter 19: In the Mountains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

Getting slapped in the face by a blizzard was not a pleasant way to wake up.

She gasped and sat straight up. For a moment the buffets of snow and wind were forgotten because her back erupted into pain, but another gust of wind reminded her she was in Northrend in the middle of winter. She was still on Derestrasz's back, riding the red drake towards Ulduar. It took a moment to wipe the sleep out of her eyes, during which more snow battered into her face, but she could get a good look around.

Even with the dark, heavy clouds choking the sky it was painfully bright. What little light broke through the cloud cover reflected off what appeared to be mountains of brilliant, reflective steel, off the millions of snowflakes still in air, and directly into Sara's eyes.

She closed them and growled. She tried to shout at Derestrasz to do something, but any sound that came from her mouth was swallowed up by the blizzard. The drake flapped his wings, then _tilted_ sideways as a gust slammed into them. She opened her mouth to scream but the noise stuck in her throat, and at any rate Derestrasz righted himself and flew towards the blurry outline of a mountain.

Another gust snapped him to the right, then to the left, but he kept flapping and soon, through the rushing white, Sara saw the dim outline of a cave. She understood his intentions, and readied herself for a rough landing.

Like a graceful bird of prey, the red drake flew into the open cave, tripped, and tumbled head over heels with Sara barely jumping off in time to avoid being flattened. She shook her head to clear off some of the snow that had gathered on her jacket, and glanced outside. She instantly regretted it as the snow glare almost blinded her, and slung off her pack to start looking for the dark glasses she'd brought explicitly for this reason.

"So," Derestrasz said once he'd righted himself. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Sara said, suppressing a shiver. She was glad to be out of the blizzard, but underground? Not ideal. "Glad you knocked me out of the sky when you did, I don't think a hippogriff would last long in this weather. How long was I asleep?"

He nodded. "A few hours. It's almost noon now, and I had to take shelter here to avoid getting blown around. We're making progress though. We should get to Ulduar in about three days at this rate."

Three days. Sara had rations for a week, though she didn't know what the drake would eat in that time. "Three days huh? What're you going to eat?"

He shrugged. "When this blizzard lets up a bit I'm sure I can find something - wait. Do you hear that?"

They both went still, and the drake lifted his wings in preparation to fight. Sara took the pause to examine the cave. Outside the storm raged, and the opening was just large enough for a drake to fly through. The walls were all black stone sheared to smoothness, the ground was caked in ice, and after going back a short distance it curved around and down. The cause for Derestrasz's concern was evident, because if Sara listened over the rushing ice outside she heard something in the back of the cave slithering. _Towards them._

That didn't matter. The ground seemed to ooze power into her, and she summoned brilliant, hungry green magic to her left hand.

Around the curve of the came a worm rushed up to meet them. Its body was thin and long, like tape. Mostly it was earthy brown, but blue spikes hung off the sides of the thin creature. A crest of white hair went down the middle of its back, and two pincers clicked around a chiseled mouth that could carve through stone. The eyeless worm spotted the two of them and, with a snakelike motion, charged them.

"Bad move!" she cackled, bringing her hand up to her body and then thrusting it out at the worm. A laser of viridian power shot from her hand and washed over the jormungar like a tidal wave, casting flickering shadows on the cave as it engulfed the beast. Before she could over-channel too much Sara ended the stream of magic. For a moment the worm stood, seemingly unharmed, but then it toppled to the side without a sound. When it crashed to the cavern floor, the shockwave sent the misty residue of Sara's magic billowing.

"Well," she said with a light giggle. It felt good to actually _kill_ something for a change, not just banish it to the Nether. "That solves that. Go eat."

"You just killed it!" Derestrasz shouted, glaring at her with slit pupils. "I had it under control; I could soothe it and force it into hibernation! That was completely unnecessary, mortal!"

"Yeah well, it's dead now," she said, sitting and fishing through her bags for her ration pellets. "You should probably check for any corruption though, just to be safe. And aren't dragons carnivores?"

He huffed, but relaxed his wings so that they laid on his back. "Fine. Food is food." He padded over to the jormungar and began some magical ritual to purify it.

Sara didn't pay much attention, choosing instead to plop a pellet into her mouth. She grimaced, but chewed and swallowed it so she'd be nourished and hydrated for a few hours more. Once that was done she took out the black glasses and put them over her face, hooked around her ears so they wouldn't accidentally fall off. When they slid over her eyes the cave instantly blackened until she could hardly see the dragon fussing over his food. A glance towards the cavern exit revealed that they did their job perfectly.

Before, the little light that got through the blizzard reflected constantly in all directions, threatening to burn her eyes out of their sockets no matter where she looked. With the glasses however, Sara didn't even need to squint. The storm continued to rage outside, blustering back and forth and occasionally sending a blast of snow into the cave. Sheets of sleet blew back and forth in raging pillars, in waves, sometimes upwards as the wind bounced off the steep cliffs. She couldn't see far into the storm, but the raging chaos outside was _more_ than enough to bring a smile to her face.

Of course, the air was still searing cold and even though her jacket protected most of her body, she was forced to keep changing which parts of her face were exposed to prevent frostbite. Even a magic shield didn't help much.

Even over the howling wind that petulantly ruffled her coat, she heard the dragon behind her start ripping meat from bone and chewing it. The noise was wet and slimy, like how his nature magic had felt on her skin, and she shuddered at the memory. So... holy magic and nature magic were things she had adverse reactions to. Good to know.

Derestrasz eventually finished eating the dragon-sized worm and padded over to her. He lay down on his belly and watched the storm with her. She turned to him. "Any idea how long this'll last? It's pretty and all but I'd like to get to Ulduar before the demons kill everyone."

"Not long, the storms up here are frequent but relatively short lived." He licked his snout clean of blood. "Should be any minute."

"Hmm," she grunted, leaning against the stone wall while trying to keep her face from being frostbitten. He was right though. The howling winds slowly weakened, and the downpour of snow thinned out. Sara was especially glad for her tinted glasses, as the clouds thinned and allowed more of the sunlight through.

Once the blizzard died down to an acceptable level, Derestrasz stood and shook his wings. Sara got on, strapped herself in, and with a running start the red drake took to the skies.

Before it had been cloudy and visibility was only a few yards in all directions. But with the storm dying down Sara got her first good look at the Storm Peaks.

They weren't actually mountains. They were cliffs. Enormous, steep cliffs worn into near vertical drops by thousands of years of slicing wind. They were like towers of ice all around her, reflecting the sunlight in a million different ways. Gray clouds formed a roof above them, which most of the 'mountains' disappeared into. If she looked over Derestrasz's side, Sara was greeted with a dizzying drop comparable to how high Dalaran floated above the ground. The Storm Peaks were monochrome, with white snow and rocks that came in varying shades of gray.

Even if the blizzard wasn't as intense it was still windy and still snowing. Flakes caught themselves on Sara's face until she brushed them off, and the wind sent occasional snowbanks racing through the canyons. Here and there Sara thought she saw a wendigo, or yeti. At one point she thought she saw a brilliant blue proto-drake dipping in and out of the cloud cover, but it was too dim to tell.

As Derestrasz flew north, battling the wind and weather, Sara craned her head around in all directions to take in the sights. The howling wind was eerie, but made no impression on Sara. After she got an eyeful of the Storm Peaks, she turned her thoughts to Ulduar.

When the assault had been launched on Yogg-Saron, the Titan prison had been completely ransacked. That had been almost thirty years ago so the Watchers could have rebuilt, but at the same time Yogg-Saron had been building up the defenses specifically to keep people out. What could Sara expect, going into the city? Iron dwarves and iron vrykul patrols. Iron giants, some mechanical weapons. Her distraction gem certainly wouldn't work on them, which was why she'd brought a second blue crystal to make a distraction gem _specifically_ tailored for iron soldiers.

There would be patrols. That meant she needed to get one of them by themselves - preferably an iron dwarf because the others were big and scary - and use that to enchant her gem. As for getting _into_ the city...

... eh, she'd wing it. The weather cleared up around Ulduar so it couldn't be too difficult. The iron soldiers had to be able to get in and out, after all.

The two of them flew and flew and flew. Eventually, the perpetually overcast sky began to darken and the wind slowly started to pick up again. Sara felt the beginnings of exhaustion tugging at her eyelids, and Derestrasz must've also noticed it was getting to be night because the next cave they found, he dove into it.

"Alright, here we go," he said, gesturing at the cave with a wing. It was remarkably similar to the last one they'd taken shelter in. "You can get some rest, I'll take night watch. I needed to rest my wings anyway."

She undid her harness and landed. The rush of power was slightly stronger than before, but riding on a scaly dragon for nearly an entire day left her legs feeling like water and in no time, Sara was sitting on the snow. "You sure? I don't need you falling asleep in mid-air."

The red dragon brought the same wing across his chest as if offended. "I'm a dragon, I can go longer without needing sleep."

She rolled her eyes, but slung off her pack and began searching through it. "Oh, of course you can," she muttered. Sara took out another pellet, popped it into her mouth, and swallowed. "Well, enjoy." Sara took a few minutes to find a tolerable position against the stone wall, then resummoned a shadowy barrier and wrapped it around herself. It wouldn't do much, but it would at least keep some of her body heat in.

Fortunately, not much happened. She fell to sleep and experienced vivid, nonsense dreams that she forgot within seconds of waking up. Sara jerked awake with an undignified snort, and brought her hands up to clear her eyes. Still the same cave. Same jacket. Same dragon looking outside. But another blizzard had rolled in, just as strong as the previous one, breathing occasional puffs of snow into the cave.

Derestrasz, sitting on his haunches, looked over at her. "Good morning. I'm afraid we're not going to make much progress until this passes."

She shrugged. "Not much we can do. At the very least I won't get bored." Sara ate her meager breakfast and shifted to lean against the wall and stare at the roaring, shifting winds. She thought she could just... _relax_ and let her mind go blank, but as the winds continued to howl with no sign of abating, the drake turned to her.

"So, you can resurrect the dead."

Sara wondered how hard it would be to mind control a dragon.

She turned to him and decided not to burn that bridge yet. "You already know I can. What about it?"

"I am a proud member of the Red Dragonflight; the ongoing existence of life is something we are keenly in tune with," he gloated, raising his wings to make himself look bigger. "I have witnessed two or three Light-based revivals in the past. Your ritual is very dissimilar to them."

She narrowed her eyes. "I think you should stop right there," she warned.

Derestrasz lifted a paw. "Understand I'm not trying to judge you, I'm not. I'm just trying to make conversation. That's something mortals do right?" he said, trying to smile without showing off too many fangs.

Sara glowered at him. "Making conversation by prying into how my resurrection works, right?"

He sighed. "Listen miss. I am fifty seven years old." So in dragon years, fourteen. Sara was not in the mood to be lectured at by a fourteen year old. She turned her gaze back to the blizzard. "I fought in the Cataclysm and, again I'm not here to judge, but I know Old God magic when I see it - calm down!" he said, suddenly panicked when Sara pointed swirling violet magic at his face.

"What?" she snarled, standing on both feet and tensing.

"Calm down," he urged again. "I'm just worried about you. Old God magic is known for doing horrible things to those who wield it, and you seem a decent enough person given what magic you have. I don't want you to go down the road others who've used the magic have."

She huffed, extinguished her magic, and tossed her hair. "So you're here on some _desperate_ attempt to keep poor little me from being corrupted are you? Forget it. I've had these powers a very long time and I've been the untouched all my life."

"You're bringing a body with Old God magic to Ulduar, the prison of Yogg-Saron. Something's bound to happen."

"So what?" she insisted. "I don't understand why you're so worried! I've had an iron grip on my powers since I discovered them! I've never ended up giving someone tentacle arms without wanting to, I've never made people start bleeding from their eyes by casting a shadow bolt at them, and it's certainly not been influencing me! So what if I go to Yogg-Saron? It'll probably just permanently supercharge my magic or something!"

"Do you have anyone you're fighting for in this war?" Derestrasz said suddenly.

"You don't even know how to change subjects properly," she pointed out.

" _Do you?_ " he insisted.

Sara held his yellow gaze for a moment before huffing. "Yeah. My parents. They live in Elwynn. I forgot to write a letter to them while I was in Dalaran." She sat and bowed her head. "They probably think I'm dead now," she muttered. How could she have done that to them? At the earliest opportunity, she was writing a letter to them, no questions asked.

"So aren't you worried that if this magic goes to your head, you'll do something to them?" She snapped her gaze back to the dragon. He _dared_ imply that she’d... ? "Isn't it prudent to make sure that doesn't happen?"

"You're going to follow me into Ulduar aren't you?" She thought about it more. "This probably isn't even _your_ idea is it? That red dragon, or the blue, they're the ones who told you to keep an eye on me." She again wondered how hard it'd be to mind control a dragon. She still needed him to fly her to Ulduar, but having a lizard breathing down her neck, nudging her away from her ultimate destination of Yogg-Saron? No.

Then again, was there any guarantee she could force him to relax, while still being smart enough to navigate the powerful winds to Ulduar? Sure it wasn't combat, mind manipulation was something _she'd actually been practicing a lot,_ but still... what was the risk and what was the reward?

The risk was losing her flight and having to hearthstone back. Or getting mauled to death by an angry dragon if she _really_ messed up. The reward was him not following her into Ulduar... which was also a risk because then she wouldn't have a dragon bodyguard with her in case her distraction gem ever failed. And what was he going to do? He wasn't some thief trying to rob her blind. He wasn't some arcane wraith here to suck her magical essence dry. He was a red drake, a goody-goody dragon all invested in being noble, in saving her from herself, in helping her keep her head on straight.

And maybe he even had a point. On the off chance that being in the presence of the Old God of Death made her pull a Cho'gall, a red drake could probably uncorrupt her before the taint got to her heart.

"Fine, tag along and keep me from losing my mind. Maybe you'll even be useful and you'll find some superweapon I miss."

" _Anyway_ I'm getting off topic. Your resurrection magic isn't like the Holy Light. You're... you're doing something that doesn't fit. Like you're trying to fit a puzzle piece somewhere it doesn't go, but you push it so hard it goes in anyway."

"Resurrection's not _that_ hard. Dragons are just bigger than what I'm used to."

"You're doing something that doesn't fit. It's a wonderful thing, understand that, but breaking the natural order like that always ends up having some... consequences."

She yawned, looking at the now-diminished blizzard. Natural order, blah blah. Who cared if that was the 'natural order'? Nature didn't have any _real_ power on its own. "I doubt it." Really, what did he know? He was all about life but she understood how life and death interplayed much better than anyone else. Afterlives, soul drifts, energy bound in souls, all that stuff. She knew - for a fact - he was talking out of ignorance. "Anyway, think you can fly in that?" she asked, gesturing outside.

He looked thoughtful. "It should be doable, especially if it keeps weakening."

"Then let me on, and keep your sanctimonious preaching to yourself. I don't need to be lectured by a teenager," she snapped irately, a little ball of stress and anger churning in her stomach.

He snorted. "Fine." The dragon allowed Sara to approach and mount him. She strapped herself in, made sure her bag was secure, her glasses wouldn't fall off, and nodded. Derestrasz got a running start, then leaped into the winds.

Almost instantly, Sara's stomach dropped out of her body as they tilted sideways, but with a few furious flaps the drake righted himself and began flying north, occasionally being gusted around by the heavy winds.

The travel was long, and the weather was nerve-wracking. Several more times, Derestrasz had to take shelter from a storm beyond his skill, which only added time. Though after their talk about how Derestrasz knew she had Old God magic, and how he was coming along in some misguided attempt to save her soul, they didn't chat much. Perfectly fine by her. Mountains passed on all sides, sometimes forming interesting arches, loops, and tunnels depending on how the wind had carved through them. A frozen river ran beneath her. As they traveled further north however, Sara could see more and more Titan architecture.

The first time was on a rare, sunny day where she could see everywhere with impunity. The cliff peaks reached for the sun, and on top of one of them was a Titan temple. It was a vertical cylinder, but instead of walls it was supported by bronze pillars, and lit by glowing white orbs of astral energy. Despite the lack of clouds, thunder and lightning flashed above it routinely. And that had been to her left. At the same time to her right, the Storm Peaks emptied out into a massive basin, in the middle of which was a colossal depression. Looking closer revealed the depression was actually another Titan construction. This one was a circular platform that had burrowed straight through the snow and rock, with all manner of dormant, iced-over machinery inside.

Then on the fourth day, they arrived within eyeshot of Ulduar.

Beneath them the Storm Peaks were smoothed out into level walkways, with Titan metal still visible in many places. There were even stairs, free of snow, so there were people keeping them maintained. Beyond that was the island that held Ulduar.

Calling it an island wasn't entirely correct. It was connected to the mainland of Northrend through a very, very deep and rocky canyon, and a few bridges the size of the Trade Distract ran over the gap. The island itself was gargantuan, but sloped down smoothly into the glistening, icy waters. A single, giant mountain took up a large part of the island, but even it couldn't dominate the Titan city of Ulduar.

The architecture of Ulduar was mostly dull bronze and gray, layered with domes, pillars, ruffled walls, and flower-like symbols over hideously tall doors. All of the windows were tinted bright green, and some spherical magic lights twice her size provided light. From so far she couldn't make out any iron soldiers, but already the sheer scale of Ulduar was truly dawning on her. It had to be some fifteen times the size of Stormwind, just accounting for the size difference between humans and Titans. And in the middle, carved into the mountain, was the largest structure of them all, dwarfing every other building Sara had ever seen in her life. The main entrance.

Derestrasz landed on a cliff, digging his talons into the ice and looking over at Ulduar. "Ready?"

Still on the drake's back, she nodded. "Bring me as close as you can, but not too close. I need to get one of them alone so I can set up a distraction spell that'll work on them."

The air had gone paradoxically dead around Ulduar, so the flapping of Derestrasz's wings filled her ears more than even the rushing wind. Sara wasn't even phased by the sudden movement, by defying gravity. The colossal canyon opened up beneath her, threatening to swallow the two of them. Derestrasz turned, flying lengthwise along the crevice. He slowed down as they grew closer.

"So," he said, now that the wind wasn't deafening. "How long have you been able to resurrect? I don't remember you saying."

"What's it to you?" she asked, instantly going stiff.

"Just trying to figure out what the damage you may have suffered," he explained.

"I told you earlier to drop it. My family would've noticed if anything was happening to me, I spent the better part of two decades growing up with them."

"Right right, sorry." They kept flying, and eventually, Derestrasz turned to the right and passed the canyon. She was over Ulduar. Sara was still too high up to see any of the denizens, but she suspected _that_ was going to change soon.

Her body tingled as the dragon began to descend, far out of the way, behind buildings, behind snowy hills. Nobody was in sight when Derestrasz landed, his sickle claws stabbing into the icy snow, and Sara undid her harness. With shaking legs she jumped off the dragon's side and _thumped_ onto the snow, so cold that the layers of ice weren't even slick.

A _rush_ of magic exploded upwards into her, filling every inch of her body with focused Old God magic. She was so close. She was _in_ Ulduar.

Sara was almost to Yogg-Saron.


	21. Chapter 20: Standing In Your Grave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

Derestrasz, in a human form, crouched under the snow mound. Sara cautiously peeked up and looked around. There were no iron dwarves, vrykul, or anything in sight. The closest building, towering above them, must've had its entrance on the far side because she couldn't see any doors. Slowly, staying low to the ground, she made her way towards it until she was pressed up against the metallic walls, and the disguised drake followed her.

She was somewhat glad it was so cold, since it kept the ice from being slippery. Cautiously, Sara moved along the building, edging closer and closer to the corner.

"We need to get one of them over here, emphasis on _one,_ " she whispered. "If I can get them alone, I can do what needs to be done. Do you see any?"

Derestrasz pushed ahead and peeked over the corner. "No... wait, I see someone. It's... an iron dwarf." He pulled back. "Two of them. Heading this way."

Sara cursed. "Two of them huh? Think you can get just one's attention?"

"That won't work, the other will notice its patrol partner is gone," he whispered. "It's both of them or none of them."

She considered their options. On one hand she could be patient, wait for them to leave, and wait for a singular iron dwarf to come. It was the reasonable, safer option. But...

Her entire body tingled with anticipation. She was close to something. Close enough to touch. And who knew when the next patrol would come by? Who knew if there even WERE any lone iron dwarves? They'd just end up wasting hours for no reason.

"Bring both of them," she said. "I'll handle it," she growled, preparing a spell.

The adolescent boy nodded and brought both hands together on his right side, like he was cupping something. Out of thin air, little embers coalesced and gravitated into the space between his hands, forming a steadily growing orb. Then, he held out his left hand is if to throw it. The fist-sized fireball flew out, steaming as it sailed through the air, and _plopped_ into the snow. It left only a tiny crater, but from the way Derestrasz hurried back it had caught their attention. She _really_ hoped they wouldn't just send one, while the other ran to raise the alarm. Sara was counting on Ulduar having been quiet for thirty years, so they grew soft.

If the iron soldiers even _could_ get soft _._ She heard they were very human-like, but...

"Get ready to change back and hold them down," she whispered, shielding herself. He nodded and readied himself, splaying out his fingers as if they were claws. The swirling violet magic around Sara's hands shivered as she grinned in anticipation. Before long she heard the _thump thump_ of feet approaching, then around the corner of the Titan building two iron dwarves appeared.

They were superficially just like male dwarves. Thick bodied, long beards, all that. Then there was the 'iron' portion. Their skin was a dull brownish-gray and, despite being made of metal, seemed to flex and shift as easily as flesh. Their pants, chestplate, and shoulderpads smoothly transitioned into the rest of their bodies, and lightning-blue runes were inscribed along their arms, legs, waist, hands, and feet. The noses had no nostrils, but the eyes and mouth both showcased the inner azure light shared by Titan constructs.

Neither of the two carried any weapons, which explained why, upon noticing Sara, they both raised their hands in perfect synchronization to summon lightning magic.

Then Derestrasz smoothly transformed back and snaked around behind the two constructs, which apparently didn't take notice of him. Before their lightning bolts could fire he reared up and, with a single paw each, flattened them to the ground.

When their magic went out, Sara's flew out. She pushed her Old God magic into the first one's mind...

She hadn't known exactly what to expect. Unlike with others, the mental lines in the iron dwarf were... geometric. They were arranged into a little cube, with nothing but ninety degree angles all around, and the pulses of thought moved like train tracks. It made finding the analogies to non-iron thought very simple, and in no time she'd figured out how to make her distraction gem affect iron dwarves as well.

Then, she tried to knock them unconscious. Iron dwarves didn't sleep, but they did seem to have a low-power state that was close enough. She pushed her magic into it to trigger it, frowned when it failed, then forced even more power. _That_ worked, and their struggles ceased.

"Wow," she panted. "These things are something else." She fished around in her pack and pulled out the distraction gem. She held it in one hand, and then got the unenchanted blue crystal into her other hand. Comparing the iron dwarves' minds to how she made her first distraction gem, Sara began etching the enchantment into it. It took some time, especially in the bitter cold, but before long she was done. Then she reached into the two constructs' minds and wiped their memories. Direct memory manipulation wasn't something she could normally do, but these things were so... compartmentalized. Everything was so easy to find, so easy to _ruin_. No wonder Ulduar had fallen to Yogg-Saron if the Titans had made it so easy.

She put the distraction gem away and held the Ulduar distraction gem in her right fist. Sara channeled half of her mana pool into it until blue light shone through the gaps in her hand, and she stepped to Derestrasz.

"Alright, get off of them, change back and stick with me." The dragon obeyed her, staying close behind Sara. Good thing she'd brought a dragon; the iron constructs must not have been programmed to ever see red dragons as threats.

Sara turned the iron dwarves 'back on' and stepped away. They looked around for a moment, confused, but their eyes passed right over her and the drake. They turned around and continued to walk, apparently having changed their patrol routes on the go.

"We need to hurry," she hissed. "Their discrepancy might alert the rest of Ulduar and we need to get in before they find out what we've done." She pointed at the main entrance. "Let's go!"

"Maybe I should fly us in?" he suggested. "If that crystal will keep them from noticing us then we should make as much use of my wings as we can."

Good idea. "Right." With a shimmering distortion of air, the drake transformed back into his true form. Clutching the gem tightly, Sara climbed on and strapped herself in. He began flapping, which didn't even budge the icy snow, and ascended. First he shot directly away from Ulduar in order to gain height, but once at a terrible height Derestrasz pulled around _sharply_ , so sharply Sara nearly threw up in mid-air, but she held in her lunch long enough for the dragon to straighten out.

So high up, the air was thin and Sara had to be careful to watch her breathing, as well as the sharp cold, but luckily it meant it would be very difficult for any iron soldiers to notice them, _especially_ with the gem blazing between her fingers. To her left and right the dragon's powerful wings continued to flap, and she looked down to see Ulduar pass beneath them. From so high up, it was easy to see a general structure. The mountain in the center of the island separated 'outer' Ulduar from 'inner' Ulduar. Outer Ulduar's buildings were arranged almost like flower petals around a central core, leading to vast underground chambers. Then there was the mountain, and on the other side was the main city of Ulduar.

Nestled in between hills, the streets were wide and tall, forming a long path to the north while also branching off into labyrinthine side passages of inscrutable design. Even from so high up, she could see iron soldiers buzzing about down below like ants, and she gulped nervously. That was... quite a lot of them. She didn't like her odds against that many, not even with a dragon.

That was an army.

From so high up it didn't seem like a long flight, but it took Derestrasz the better part of the day to finish flying to the right spot. Once there he began making large circles down, which did nothing but eat up the rest of their daylight. With auroras as their primary source of light, Derestrasz flew lower and lower and lower, closing in on the monumental building at the end of the path. _That_ was their destination, the gate to the inner sanctum of Ulduar.

It was also crawling with iron soldiers. Iron dwarves, titanic iron vrykul, and even a singular iron giant the size of a mansion. Not a single one of them looked her way, but all the same Sara feared to even breathe.

The final room before the inner sanctum could best be summoned up as a box without a lid, filled with murderous iron constructs that would fry her to charcoal if they saw her. Derestrasz landed on the 'lid' of the box and padded over to the edge to look down.

"Descend slowly," she whispered. "It's a big drop." It was a big drop indeed. Thrice the size of the iron giant, it would be a very quick death if she slipped from Derestrasz's back. He nodded back to her and ever so gently began to flap his way down. It was jerky, so Sara's guts kept going up and down inside her body and she swore she could feel lightning about to strike her. The iron soldiers grew restless as Derestrasz landed in a small pile of snow, and with tense motions Sara got off.

He shifted back, and Sara held up a finger in front of her mouth; the universal symbol to _be quiet._ He gave her a quick nod, and Sara began to lead the two of them around the perimeter of the 'box' towards the colossal stairs. Most of the iron soldiers faced forward with eerie stillness. Both her and the dragon's breathing was thunderous, and it was surely because of them that some of the unmoving, unbreathing constructs looked their way before turning back. Not all faced forward either, some faced in various directions to cover all angles. The fact that they were still alive did nothing to calm her. The immense magic inside of her did nothing to reassure her. Sara was certain that any second, one of her footsteps would be just a _little_ too loud and she'd die.

This was a terrible idea.

Soon, she and Derestrasz arrived at the back of the box, which was an enormous staircase. Each step was almost as tall as Sara herself, which made climbing it while staying close to the dragon rather awkward and difficult. It took a long time, especially in the darkness of night, and sent shooting pains up her legs. Despite those obstacles, they climbed the steps. Her lungs demanded that she take gasps of air, but she didn't dare do anything so loud.

Before them was a teleporter. It was a ring of bronze metal on the ground glowing with sky-blue magic, with a hollow wheel floating ten yards above it. The floating ring also held blue light, and in between the two motes of magic transferred up and down rapidly.

She and Derestrasz stood in front of it, and she motioned for him to grab her hand. He did; his human form's skin was almost painfully warm, and she shuddered in revulsion at the contact but ignored her disgust and led the two of them inside.

The shifting pinpricks of light grew painfully intense, stuck to her, and then with an inaudible _whoosh_ the two of them were teleported.

Unlike portal travel, teleportation was instant. One moment she was outside. Then there was a flash of blinding light and, when it cleared, they were inside.

The first thing that hit her was the warmth, enough to warrant unbuttoning her jacket and pulling down the hood. Her hair was frazzled, but so what? Then, she took off the glasses since there was no risk of snow-blindness.

Luckily, the inside of Ulduar was nowhere _near_ as heavily guarded as the outside. They'd arrived in a hallway sized for the Titans. There were all sorts of ornate pictures on the walls, or constellation holograms of the various races of Azeroth, but Sara was more focused on searching for anyone who might've seen their teleportation.

Nobody. The air was still and stagnant but clean, as if fresh air had once been pumped in and never breathed again. Now she just needed to find a way forward to Yogg-Saron without...

She motioned for Derestrasz to wait, and went behind him. He turned his head around to raise an eyebrow at her, but she flashed him a reassuring smile.

_'Guard me real quick,'_ she mouthed. He nodded and turned his attention back ahead.

The iron constructs did not consider red dragons as threats. Red dragons were also made by the Titans, also made to guard Azeroth, and were not corrupt. So why would they worry about them? If they were to come across, say, a sleeping red drake, then why would they take any action? Sure it was unusual, but the presence of a lone, napping dragon they were allied with was nothing to be worried about. And when the time came, Sara could easily return, wake him up, and pretend nothing had happened.

Then she remembered she could use telepathy.

Sara reached her magic into his mind and telepathically whispered. _'Walk forward, stick to the walls.'_ He nodded and moved forward. The hallway was made of several alcoves, where the width grew narrower for a brief distance. She planned to hide Derestrasz behind one, and knock him out. She followed his lead, breaths shallow and when he was hidden she, still behind him, reached into the disguised dragon's mind and instantly knocked him out. Another flicker of magic, and he was unable to wake up.

He hadn't collapsed into a very ideal position, so she grabbed his limp body and wrestled it into a corner, sitting upright. Then Sara began peered closer, and snuffed out his ability to dream. After that, with some trial and error, as well as telepathic whispers to him, she removed his ability to form new memories. It took her hours and left her mana pool almost empty, but she did it.

Derestrasz wouldn't impede her. When she was done she could come back, wake him up, and he'd be none the wiser.

Sara forced down a yawn and, alone, continued forward into Ulduar.

She had to admit, Ulduar was as beautiful as it was massive. Sprawling corridors of gold and bronze extended around her. The floor was made of intricate tiles of innumerable runic geometries. It was unfortunate the hallway was so long, though. Was she even making any -

_Thud thud!_

Sara held her breath and hid behind an alcove. The _thud thud_ of some mechanical creation came closer, closer, _closer..._ and then left. She almost whimpered at what was surely a near-death experience.

What the hell was she doing?

Moving slowly and carefully, she went from one hiding alcove to the next. The urge to sleep began tugging at her eyelids, but she powered through until she reached the end of the hallway, which terminated in a three-way intersection. One path led to the left, another to the right, and a third straight ahead to two stairs, both of which went up to the same place. In between the two stairs was the hologram of an enormous, constellation serpent.

Her gut said that she had to go _down_ to reach Yogg-Saron, but forward also seemed to be the way.

Sara was halfway to the stairwell when a patrol of two iron vrykul came in through the left corridor. She froze and dashed to hide next to the constellation's pedestal, heart hammering in her chest. Sitting down only made them appear taller than they were. They turned to her and her heart nearly stopped, but when they turned and continued as if they'd seen nothing, she nearly melted in relief.

Climbing the stairs was harder without Derestrasz's help since they were still Titan-sized stairs, but step by step, minute by minute, Sara made her way up. Her legs burned and her heart threatened to leap from her throat, but she couldn't stop now. She was so close. The Old God magic pouring into her was slowly but surely ramping up as she grew closer to Yogg-Saron. Her mana pool had already filled back up from being depleted on the dragon, and she felt like she could raze a fortress to the ground.

Not an Ulduar-sized fortress though.

She reached the top, where the two stairwells merged back together, and her breath left her body.

Whoa.

The inner sanctum of Ulduar was laid out before her. A bridge, wide enough to fit an army, expanded in front. It led to what could vaguely be described as a wheel. The wheel was made of circular plateaus, each melting into one another, with astral beacons providing light. Craning her neck back she saw more astral lights on the cavernous ceiling, but even then she got the impression that there was light coming from some unseen source. A multitude of gateways left the wheel, and each had a floating symbol in their maws. A blue snow flake, a red cog, a green flower, and a yellow lightning bolt. But... there was one exception.

The tunnel to her immediate left lacked such a symbol and simply led out of sight.

In the middle of the wheel was a gargantuan hole, upon which rested a pillar of glass. The cerulean glass started on the lip of the gaping hole, but curved upwards into a thin shape like the bottom half of an hourglass, all the way up to the ceiling. The entire expanse was eerily silent, and Sara couldn't see anyone. No iron dwarves, no iron vrykul, no nothing. The room was the size of Stormwind, sure, but even then... nothing.

She walked forward, careful to step as lightly as she could. Despite her efforts, it felt like her every step ricocheted off the walls and pillars to deafening effect. But there was nobody around to hear. She crossed over the bridge, hoping and praying it wouldn't collapse into the abyss beneath, and almost gasped in relief when she got to the other side. Then she looked at the two stairwells, one which went left and one that went right.

She went left. It was easier to go down the stairs than up, but still awkward as Sara kept having to lower herself down, all while keeping a death grip on her modified distraction gem. By the time she got down the stairs she was panting for breath and her legs felt like they were made of fire, so she found a relatively concealed location to rest, eat another ration pellet, and calm her nerves.

A statue passed by her.

A walking, hooded statue the size of an adult dragon and its twin, passed by her. Currents of electricity passed in between the two, and Sara got the impression that their presence strengthened each other. With her newfound wrath she could destroy them... probably. But in doing so she'd undoubtedly attract the attention of the rest of Ulduar.

_That_ thought reminded her she was likely on a time limit, so she got back up and continued to walk left, out of the sight of the statues. It was a straight path, but it was still a very long way to reach the left-most hallway.

As she walked further in, the lights seemed to dim. There were stained glass windows on all sides, and in front of her what appeared to be an open locking mechanism. A metal head with glowing blue eyes was above a shower curtain of light rays, none of which seemed to be harmful. The windows were odd. One held what appeared to be human babies, but with naga tails. One was reaching towards what seemed to be tadpoles. The window across from it showed a single, fully grown human with an outrageously large orange beard and a fish tail, holding a trident in both hands. There more windows. Some were replicas of each other. Others were equally odd.

She continued, past the mirrors and under the open 'door'. The hallway was, as was everything in Ulduar, large and took a long time to traverse, but she finally seemed to be alone so there was that.

At the end there were more windows, but the one on the left had been shattered. One pillar that had once held an astral light was reduced to rubble. Sara peered through the massive hole to find another room, with slabs of rock forming a pseudo-staircase down. There were more window pictures, but they were progressively stranger. A human's head, but their body was instead a long green rectangle that, at the bottom, came apart into tentacles. Pillars tilted to one side. Flickering astral lights.

And dead faceless ones. They were sprawled out on the floor, riddled with holes, slashes, and burns. Black blood covered the ground around their bodies, and none of them showed any hint of decomposition. They smelled like death, a reassuring scent in the metallic halls of Ulduar.

Looking out over the scene, Sara nodded and made her way down. Going down the rubble stairs was difficult, but with some creativity she managed it. She avoided the faceless ones, lest she trip over their sprawling tentacle arms, and kept descending.

The room she found herself in only lead to another broken-up room. Like before, the gateway was a shattered window, however for this window some of the tauren-sized shards of glass still hovered in the middle of the frame, slowly rotating under an unseen force. In this second room, there were skeletons instead of faceless. More windows too, but one of them had been shattered by a green growth of rock.

Sara made a little detour and approached the rock. It wasn't exactly green, blue-green with a metallic sheen was more appropriate, and it was _huge._ Even so it was so high up that even if she jumped she couldn't touch it. Being close to it, however, she could see moving shades of color underneath its rugged surface, almost like it was breathing. Standing in its presence sent warm pulses through her head, relieving a building headache she hadn't noticed until that moment.

She caught herself. What was she doing? This was, without a doubt, saronite. The congealed blood of Yogg-Saron, a metallic substance that whispered to those in its proximity and inexorably drove them insane. Even with her link to the Old God, she shouldn't assume she'd be immune to its properties. Sara continued forward into the next shattered room. She hopped from slab to slab, slowly making her way down, and walked through another shattered window - complete with floating glass - into the third colossal room.

This next room rivaled the size of the Mage Quarter in Stormwind. The Titanic tiles on the ground had gone black, covered with solidified fog and corpses - not bones, there was zero rotting - from various humanoid races. Windows lined the circular room's edges, each separated by a dull red pillar, and these were the strangest thus far.

There was one picture of the human head atop a green rectangle. There were others of seaweed - maybe tentacles - underwater. Others with a strange creature with many pairs of eyes stacked on top of each other, with a fanged mouth. Two of the windows were also broken, punctured through by growths of saronite, and another stained glass window was entirely absent from its frame, revealing a greenish black rock behind it. Light shone down from above, illuminating several colossal glass shards floating in midair. The upper half of the room lacked all Titanic design, being nothing but saronite-tainted rock. She shivered; Sara hated being underground.

There were two more faceless corpses on the room, far larger than the earlier ones. But overshadowing them all was the body of one single faceless, different from all the rest and standing even _taller_ than a dragon, almost in the center of the room.

Legs trembling from all the walking, Sara approached. Her feet clacked along the befouled floor, all interest in stealth gone. It was a long journey to reach the fallen faceless one, but she made it and examined it.

Where the other faceless were leathery and scaly gray, this one was covered in a greenish carapace from head to toe. The natural armor formed shoulder pads covered in yellow spikes, and instead of tentacles his arms ended in giant lobster claws. His chest was covered in yellow plates, and to each side a relatively small, spiked purple tentacle curled against his side. He was 'face' down, which made seeing his head impossible, but Sara could still make out two long greenish tendrils that sprouted from his head, with a yellow leaf-like spade on their ends. A thick, muscular and armored tail came out from behind him, tapering off into an impossibly sharp point, and on the faceless one's back were three pairs of spiked scythes, one on top of the other.

All of it was limp. Stopping next to him she reached out a hand and stroked one of the unscathed patches of armor. Contrary to her expectations it was warm and squirmed under her hand. She imagined if a limb falling asleep could be felt by other people, it would feel like touching this creature's armor. She stepped back and looked him over and sighed. There was something... melancholy about seeing something so unfathomably ancient brought low like this.

It didn't matter. She was almost there. The nervous tingle in her gut urged her to go on, to go through the gateway and to her final destination. So she did.

The open doorway brought her to a small room, and that small room in turn brought her to the prison of Yogg-Saron.

It was large, almost as large as the previous room. There was a hole in the ceiling, which led to the glass tube that Sara had seen from above; she had finally circled back around, and was now standing underneath where she had been relatively recently. She made sure her distraction gem was still blazing, and pushed forward. Spaced relatively evenly, four podiums stood at the edges of the prison, but each was empty. Enormous, ghostly blue chains hung from the walls, shattered beyond any use, and growths of saronite hugged the corners. The ground was utterly in disarray, with no evidence of any patterning whatsoever which made her smile in delight. Holes punched through the land in places where the Old God must have once sent its tentacles to battle the Kingslayers, not to mention the dozens of faceless corpses that littered the room.

Sara walked closer, feeling her breathing come in nervous gasps. She'd made it. She was standing in the same room as a dead Old God, all alone. She didn't need to look up at Yogg-Saron, she knew it was there. Not what it looked like, but it was there.

The floor dipped as she went closer, the cracks grew wider, and were more thoroughly colored by the taint of saronite. She walked closer and closer, but then the ground emptied into a basin of bubbling, churning, liquid saronite and she dared go no closer.

Looking up, Sara caught sight of Yogg-Saron.

It was clearly just the head. Where C'Thun had been radially symmetrical, Yogg-Saron was bilaterally symmetrical. She had the vaguest impression of a fish, or the head of a snake, with the rest of the body hidden underground. The head faced the entrance, and it was quite an impressive head. Off to the sides she could see pustules filled with long-stagnant green gas, and dreadlock-like tentacles that ran into the pool of liquid saronite. On top of Yogg-Saron's head were dark armor plates that she wouldn't be surprised to learn were indestructible.

The front of the Old God's face was dominated with a single, massive maw with equally massive fangs, but the monster was dead so its fangs had impaled its own flesh. Instead of eyes, Yogg-Saron had eye-holes, and instead of two it had eight, and all of them were filled with 'smaller' fangs. All those mouths were also limply shut. The Old God's head was limp and motionless, sending no waves through the perpetually churning saronite.

Alright. Sara had arrived.

Now what? She had no instruments, nothing to record with. But the magic that pooled in her seemed to pool in her chest, almost like it was being attracted to Yogg-Saron. Sara grimaced. That was a terrible, _terrible_ idea. Who knew what directly touching an Old God would do to her? But... she'd already come so far. Was she really willing to just leave and call it a night, after getting nothing but a scenic tour?

She put a foot into the saronite pool.

It was warm, warm like a fever and thick as honey. Her left foot sank until it hit something hard - either rock or solid saronite - and she grimaced. Sara pulled her foot back out of the pool, and watched as the liquid saronite sluggishly ran off and left not a trace behind. Her foot was still bone dry. Then she waded in, approaching Yogg-Saron's body. The pool wasn't even knee deep, and the currents felt like they were massaging her legs. But as she grew closer and closer to the Old God, her anticipation grew and it seemed as if her magic was tugging her, urging her to get closer.

To touch it.

Yogg-Saron loomed above her, right in front of Sara. She gulped, and reached out her left hand to the brownish, leathery skin. Her hand was so close. Its presence was overwhelming and her vision blurred.

She was...

She, she couldn't...

* * *

**_The slth'ret empire was vast and their numbers were many, locked in perpetual war with the elementals. Yogg-Saron had decided the elementals would win, as had N'Zoth, while C'Thun and Y'Shaarj were corrupting and empowering the slth'ret. Tsa'Thannon had elected to stay out of the business, instead casually torturing the -_**

* * *

What was going on? The slth'ret? She saw the image of a strange quadraped with legs for eyes that moved by levitation, but there was no record of -

* * *

**_It was small, microscopic, trying to eke out a living in a nutrient rich pond, but it had just made an ally. C'Thun, they called it. It was a good name. It decided its name would be -_ **

* * *

Yogg-Saron was showing her things. They were so much more structured than C'Thun's vision and Sara felt the images burning themselves onto -

* * *

**_The sky was red with its foul power. Yogg-Saron raised a massive tentacle and smashed it against N'Zoth, sending earthquakes through the land. C'Thun and Y'Shaarj moderated it and kept the destruction to one half of the planet. No sense in making the fod'et extinct when there was so much they could still harvest from them -_ **

* * *

Was there any sense to this? Was she going to be stuck here, witnessing the full extent of -

* * *

**_It had figured something out. All minds needed a certain group of pathways to work. It could take several forms, but there was a formula that could be used. Using that formula, it could create madness spells that would work on absolutely anything. Elementals, other forming organics, itself -_ **

* * *

A formula? A way to affect anything? How much magic did Yogg-Saron know? How much could she learn -

* * *

**_Yogg-Saron bit down on Aman'thul and, with a flick of its head, sent him flying through a mountain. It bent its head down and, with the armored plates on its head, absorbed a lightning bolt from Golganneth. But it could feel itself weakening. The Titans were strong, so strong, and though it could shatter any one of them on its own, the six members of the Pantheon together were more than six members of the Pantheon apart. Where was -_ **

* * *

It was too much. Her head hurt. There was just too much -

* * *

**_Trapped. Trapped under so much stone and dirt. It couldn't extend its magical sensors, but in time it would. Then it would find the details of its prison and work to subvert them. Those metal mongrels thought they had any right to come to its world and take it away?! It would show them... and their creations would pay dearly for -_ **

* * *

Of course, Yogg-Saron had wasted no time trying to escape. But where would she store all these memories? Her brain was too -

* * *

**_So it was still too weak to defeat the mortals. It would not have the mana to cast the life extinguishing spell in time. Instead, it needed to do something drastic. It would need to humble itself, in the hopes that its feeble echo would find out what it was and -_ **

* * *

No... it couldn't be. That was impossible. There was no way -

* * *

**_The five of them had grown bored of the terroragk and effortlessly wiped them out. Yogg-Saron fleshcrafted a new race of servants in an instant, adding and removing body parts on a whim. The first of the faceless were created. It wondered how long it would be before they grew bored of the faceless, and wiped them out -_ **

* * *

The faceless... weren't always their servants? It made sense, if they were chaos gods, but -

* * *

**_Hope that its echo would find a way back to its body. It didn't have the magic or the time to set up a forceful transfer trap, but it COULD give the echo every memory it would lose. No more time to waste. It was about to die -_ **

* * *

But how could she be? All her life... but how could she not be? It explained -

* * *

**_N'Zoth's faceless clashed against Yogg-Saron and C'Thun's, while Tsa'Thannon fought Y'Shaarj and C'Thun, and Y'Shaarj fought Yogg-Saron and N'Zoth, and C'Thun's own forces fought -_ **

* * *

Was anything sacred to them? The lives of the other Old Gods seemed to be, but other than that? Other than that was everything subject to -

* * *

**_Time and patience had made it strong. Now, Yogg-Saron was going to pit itself against Neptulon. Once it wrested control from the water lord, it could feast upon the chaos with impunity, and in time subjugate the rest of the elemental lords. They needed to understand that their rule over the world was over. Permanently. From then on -_ **

* * *

Her head burned. Her entire body burned. Her magic squirmed. The vision flashed by almost too fast, sometimes focusing on a memory on an overlay -

* * *

**_In time the mortal reincarnation would return. One day, it would return to its true glory. Yogg-Saron said its last words to the mortals, and ejected its soul from its body._ **

* * *

Sara gasped and stumbled back. She lost her balance and tripped, falling backwards. She caught herself on her arms, but still ended up sitting in the pool of saronite, staring at Yogg-Saron. She scrambled back through the viscous, pulsing fluid.

No... no she couldn't be.

There was no way.

It was impossible!

Finally getting up on both legs, she backpedaled out of the liquid saronite, which slid off her legs and back into the pool. Her head throbbed, eons of memories magically burnt into it, ready for her to examine whenever she wished.

She was -

She could -

She'd cause -

Her breathing sped up. She had to get away. She had to get away!

Sara turned around, gripped her distraction gem, and ran as fast as she could.

She had to get away.


	22. Chapter 21: Conflict of Interest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Talgath the Inexorable

  


Standing in the ruined base of Dreadmaul Hold, Talgath could only grin. They had finally, finally broken through the Blasted Lands. Lord Kil'jaeden would be pleased.

The eredar lord walked towards Argolash, who was busy stomping on already-pulverized bones with his forelegs. "Ahem," he said, grabbing the annihilan's attention.

Argolash whirled around with a snarl that did not relent when he saw Talgath. "What is it?" he growled.

"We're done here, Argolash," he rumbled to the equally tall demon. "Take a squadron of doomguards and start clearing out the Swamp of Sorrows. _And stay on track._ We aren't interested in the Sunken Temple, we're interested in getting to Deadwind Pass."

"Rargh, fine." Argolash pushed past Talgath, making sure to stomp a troll's corpse to paste as he did. "Just don't take too long," the pit lord muttered as he walked out of the ruins, lashing his tail angrily.

Talgath huffed. Pit lords were strong and useful, but so ungraceful. But at least he was gone, with only smoking rubble surrounding Talgath. The rest of the Legion forces had already left, gathering their strength to follow Argolash, but Talgath took the time to investigate the damage. Bodies everywhere. Craters in the ground. Buildings crumpled like parchment. It was good work.

 _Clip clop, clip clop._ He turned around and beheld an approaching succubus. Talgath peered quickly at her magic signature and identified her as the one that had been compromised by the Alliance. He crossed his arms and looked down at the sayaad woman. "What is it?" he asked.

She giggled flirtatiously and gave the whip in her right hand a flick. "Lorthiras finished fixing me up not long ago," she purred. "Figured now would be a good time to come let you know what I found and who _slammed_ my mind."

He breathed out harshly through his nose. "Let's hear it."

"So, I spent some time running around, learning a bunch of weaknesses that, heheheh, don't really matter any more. But I _did_ hear a delicious piece of gossip," she said, licking her fingers sensually. "You know the reason we were having such a _hard_ time making progress for so long against them? They'd found a way to bring their dead back to life, minutes, hours, or even days after we killed them! Some mortal woman with shadow magic that allowed her to bring the dead back to life, good as new. So I figured, I have to find her and kill her, put a stop to that."

A mortal woman that could bring the dead back to life. Mephistroth had reported something in the north...

"I found their morgue, there were two humans inside. One had a magic shield around her so I ignored her, and she was sleeping anyway. I killed the other one and hey, it turns out she was just pretending to sleep. Cute little thing. Her hair was dark brown and straight, went down around to her shoulders. A little less pale than me, she was wearing brown robes. I think she was in her... twenties, yes. I got a very good look, because she knocked me down with a shadow nova and started doing... something to me." The succubus laughed in nervous distress. "I couldn't move, I couldn't access my magic. I could feel her rummaging around in my brain but there was nothing I could do, and then for a while I just _really_ wanted to do whatever anyone told me."

"Then we retrieved you and undid the damage," Talgath surmised. "Go report to Fel Lord Vakul, see what use he has for you. I will ruminate on what you have told me, little sayaad."

She shifted her weight and saluted. "For the Legion," she said with not-quite sarcastic emphasis, before sauntering off into the camp.

Once she was gone, Talgath summoned angry fel energy to his left hand and extended his arm. A random boulder the size of a doomguard shifted, surrounded by hissing green magic, and flew towards him. Still casting his magic, he gripped it and began whittling it down, piece by piece. "A human girl, hmm?" he purred to himself, blasting off chunks from the boulder until it was only about two yards across. "A human girl, with the power of the Old Gods." His magic turned more focused, slowly but quickly sheering the boulder into a thinner shape. "A human girl, with brown hair, with the power of the Old Gods, who can bring the dead back to life." His magic finished making a sculpture of a human girl, with no face and few features, but she had robes, and fingers, and hair.

"Just like the one that fought with the dragons in Northrend," he growled. Talgath was over twenty-five thousand years old. He did not believe in coincidences. This _was_ the same person.

He made the statue float a little distance from him. Then, Talgath flicked his red hand and the stone exploded into gravel.

 _This_ was something he'd have to handle. However... maybe outright killing her was too direct a method. What would Kil'jaeden do?

Hmm. It was of little consequence of what to do with the girl. Until she was sighted again she could've teleported back to the Eastern Kingdoms for all he knew. Talgath still had an invasion to lead, and as for the girl? If he wanted to do anything to her, he'd have to find her first.

So he'd find her.

* * *

Leira

  


Cooking was difficult with her right arm in a sling, but at least it wasn't her left. She lifted the tray and slid it into the dwarven oven. Once that was done she recoiled from the infernal heat and closed the door, ready to wait for the bread to rise.

Of course, closing the oven didn't mean none of the heat got out. The tiny room that she got for being in the Chimes of A'dal was homey, but it also meant the furnace's heat roasted the entire area. She didn't have much, but nor did she want for anything. A simple bed with a soft mattress, white pillow, and cozy covers was pushed against one wall. On another was a shelf that contained some of Leira's belongings: cookbooks, romance novels, adventure novels, and a few puzzles.

Next to the shelf was a wardrobe brimming with clothes, and on the wall opposite that was the dwarven oven, blazing away. For some reason, the dwarves had decided _everyone_ needed their own personal cooking oven. The last door was nothing but a locked door, with a stopped clock over it.

With nothing better to do, Leira grabbed the latest book that had grabbed her attention and flopped onto her bed to start reading. In no time she found herself immersed, but had to stop reading because the oven was _burning_ her room up. After stripping down to her undergarments, she found a comfortable spot on her bed and began reading.

The book was... okay. She would have been enjoying it more, but she couldn't really get into it while she was on leave. Honestly, one mangled arm and she was 'unfit' to go into a war zone. Wimps. If it had been her dominant arm she could understand but _come on!_ She was stuck in Ironforge with nothing to do except sit in her home and read, instead of being out there fighting the sworn enemies of her people.

Bleh. What did they know?

On a calm, intellectual level she understood. The war was going piss poorly, and everyone needed to be in tip-top shape to have a chance of driving the demons off-world. If she went back out with only one working arm she'd be a liability. She was strong enough to heft her two-handed swords in one hand each, but she couldn't hold two in _one_ hand.

But _damn it!_ People were dying out there and they wanted her to just sit around in her bedroom reading books and cooking bread?! She was a warrior, a hero, saving the world was in her _job description_ and instead she was lazing about all because some stupid fucking infernal had gotten a cheap shot on her while she was busy hacking at a -

Leira took a deep, calming breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth. The bread smelled delicious, even if the burning furnace made her sweat.

Focus. Back to the book. The main character was about to fight the villain, pushing his wits and skills to the -

_Knock knock knock!_

Her tail twitched irately. Leira swore in Draenic and tossed the book at the wall. She put on some pants and a shirt - which was tricky with just one arm - and opened the door. "Coming!" Who the hell could it be? And at this unholy hour of the night? Leira stepped out into the hallway.

Leira's room was attached to a hallway in the Chimes' guild hall, in the residence area. She'd leave her room, turn a corner, and arrive at the corridor. She wasn't sure who would be trying to get her attention this late, maybe Stephen or Kaledo, but she was going to give them a thrashing they'd not soon forget.

She closed the door behind her, walked forward and turned to come face to face with the next door.

 _KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!_ By the Light, they sounded serious. She threw open the door and leveled an unamused glare at whoever was on the other side. "Alright, what is... it?" she asked, trailing off.

Sara?

What was Sara doing here? In Ironforge? _In her guild hall?_ She was in the brown shirt and brown skirt getup she liked so much, but her hair was tangled and dirty, her face was as white as a sheet, and her eyes were red like she'd been... crying? Sara never cried. "Hey," the shorter human said faintly. "Do you have a moment?"

She blinked. "Um, yeah." She stepped aside. "Yeah, come in, come in."

Sara nodded meekly and shuffled in, hugging herself and shivering. "Thanks. Are you okay?"

"What this?" she asked, gesturing to her broken arm. "Yeah I'm alright. You should've seen it before healing magic, hah." Once the human was inside Leira closed the door and took the lead, bringing Sara to her room. She opened the door and gestured inside. "Well, welcome to my home. Sorry it's so cramped, I don't spend a lot of time in here so I don't have a reason to get larger quarters."

"It's fine," Sara grumbled. "Thanks."

Leira directed Sara to sit on the pillow side of the bed, while she sat on the other end. While it was good to see Sara's skin getting some color back from the oven's heat, it'd probably get uncomfortable soon. She and Sara stared nervously at each other.

"I found out - "

"I'm sorry for - "

They paused. "Sorry," Sara whispered, gesturing at her. "You go first."

Leira sighed. "Alright. So, hey, nice to see you," she said, cracking a smile that Sara shyly returned. "Guessing we've both been busy since I last saw you." She rubbed the back of her neck. "About that. I was a real ass when you told me about your faceless magic." Sara winced. "I shouldn't have acted like you were a time bomb waiting to go off." She punched Sara with her left hand, gently. "I've known you forever, right? If you could keep a handle on your magic when you were six then I should've just trusted that you knew what you were doing. I'm sorry for treating you otherwise."

Sara laughed bitterly. "Apology accepted." She shook her head. "If that's how you felt about me having faceless powers, then you are _really_ not going to like this." She grimaced. "Should I explain it in the order it happened, or in the order I found out about it?"

Leira waved. "Whichever you feel best about," she reassured.

The warlock nodded. "Alright. So, I already told you about the whole 'faceless powers' deal. After you left Silithus and I went back to Stormwind, we all got conscripted almost immediately into the army. Can't really blame them. I was being sent off to Nethergarde to resurrect the fallen. But, I _did_ have some time to go over the, um, data I got from C'Thun. So I looked over it, and I found that my magical signature is closer to C'Thun's than the faceless. I figured, _'oh, I don't just have faceless magic, I have full blown Old God magic'_. Not that there's much, well, practical difference between the two."

Leira shivered. Old God magic. "Wow, that's... quite something. Then what?" She was not afraid of Sara. Sara had never used her magic against her in her life. There was no reason to believe she'd start now.

"I got shunted into Nethergarde for a week or so." Sara shrugged. "I... lied when I said C'Thun didn't show me anything. It showed me lots of things. Most of it didn't make sense, but it _definitely_ showed me Ulduar."

Leira almost choked on her breath. "What?! Sara, whenever something happens with an Old God you talk about it! Not talking about it is how they turn you insane!" Sara wilted under her shouting and Leira winced, quieting down. "Sorry. You're okay now though, right?"

Without hesitation, she shrugged. "I guess. Nothing's wrong with C'Thun it's just... let me keep telling the story." She took a deep breath. "So, I spent some time in Nethergarde doing nothing but bringing people back to life, _aaand_ then one day the Legion smashed us. I think I'm the only one who got out alive. I ended up escaping to Dalaran and from there I headed to Ulduar. Had a little run in with the dragons but _that's_ all squared away now." Leira opened her mouth, but Sara cut her off. "No Leira, I did not kill any of the dragons," she assured.

"Good."

"Anyway. So I was going to Ulduar, and I'd put a few things together. I have Old God magic, and death magic. I can bring people back to life, or rip their souls out of their bodies. At the time I guessed that, when it died, a fragment of Yogg-Saron's power got lodged in my soul." She laughed bitterly. "Wouldn't that be interesting? I got to Ulduar and slipped past the Titan constructs and ended up in Yogg-Saron's prison. I walked towards it and I... I touched its head. The moment I did it showed me all sorts of things, mainly from when it ruled over Azeroth but also from when the Kingslayers were fighting it. It was all much more solid than C'Thun's visions."

Leira scooted over to Sara and, despite the uncomfortable heat, laid an arm across her shoulders. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know. The big thing about what it showed me is, well, okay. It gave me all its memories. Not like I remember them now, it's more like I have a book about Yogg-Saron's life story that I can just read whenever I want." She tapped her head and started rambling. "The big thing is the last part of its memories. When it fought the Kingslayers it was preparing a spell to extinguish all life in a colossal area. It took a lot of mana, and it was only seconds away from being able to cast it before dying. It knew it wouldn't be able to do it, so it decided it needed a, a sort of backup plan. Yogg-Saron ejected its soul from its body right before dying, and, well, well and at the same time my parents had just conceived _me_ so its soul floated over there and entered the embryo. I was seconds old so I hadn't developed a soul yet, so so um, so Yogg-Saron's soul was the only one there and it'd cast a spell over itself so that when it returned to its body it would get all the memories aaaaaand - " Sara trailed off and started shaking nervously.

"Whoa whoa, easy there Sara," she said, trying to keep her still. "You're talking too quick, can you slow down?"

The human took a large, unsteady breath and nodded. "Alright. Long story short, when Yogg-Saron died, it reincarnated as _me._ I'm not possessed. I'm not stealing Old God powers. I actually am the amnesiac Old God of Death."

Leira's eyes went wide and she blinked. Her first urge was to scoot the hell away, but she remembered how she'd treated Sara about her faceless magic in Silithus and caught herself. Instead she just breathed heavily. "Wow. That's... quite something. So an Old God huh? What's it like?"

Sara shrugged. "Not really too different. It's... it's the memories really. Yogg-Saron knew lots of things. Lots of spells. Lots of ways to manipulate. Lots of ways to torture. Lots of everything, really. Apparently I'm never going to have an afterlife. I have an Old God soul, which is too, um, resilient to go to an afterlife. I'll just linger around like a spirit until my soul's destroyed or I find another body to possess, like I am now."

"You're possessing yourself," she deadpanned.

"Sort of. Yogg-Saron's idea was that whatever mortal reincarnation it had would find a way back to its body, and merge with it. There's a spell, I think, but it looks really complicated and I haven't looked at it too hard yet. And since everyone thinks Yogg-Saron's dead, nobody would anticipate it. I'd change back into an Old God, just as powerful as when I died, but with nobody there to fight me. In about ten seconds I'd be able to cast the life extinguishing spell, and then... well then I guess Yogg-Saron would do whatever the hell it wants for the rest of time. That was its plan, anyway."

Sara had been so pale. Like she'd been attacked by a ghost. Leira made sure to emphasize her hug. "Hey, it's alright Sara. You're not Yogg-Saron right now, you're human okay? A human with incredible and scary powers, but a human. Nothing is going to force you to destroy the world, okay?"

She sighed. "But... that's the thing." Under Leira's arms and despite the sweaty heat of the furnace, she shivered. "I _want_ to, Leira."

What.

"While coming to Ironforge I was looking at its memories. I looked at what Azeroth was like under the Old Gods' rule. And it's like... like I've been eating cardboard all my life and suddenly there's a way for me to eat a cake. I wouldn't need to wait for storms and take shelter to watch them, I could whip up supercells whenever I want and observe them with impunity. I wouldn't need to crush raccoons to work out my frustrations, I could torture entire cities. I could stop... stop _worrying_ about people finding out about my mind control and killing me because I'd be the top of the food chain. I'd have the power, I'd make the rules, nothing would ever put my life in danger ever again!" she said, half whispering it like she was almost asleep.

"But," she continued weakly. "But if I turn back into Yogg-Saron, then what about you? What about Mom, or Dad?" she asked, her voice cracking. "And what if it lied? I know I would. What if when I change back, my memories here and now, are just wiped clean and Yogg-Saron dominates me? Looking at what it gave me that wouldn't happen but it could lie about that. My soul'd still be intact but I would die, Leira, and so would everyone else. Take it from me; the people alive today wouldn't last long under an Old God's rule."

"So don't do it!" Leira said. It seemed pretty obvious to her. "If there are all these things you’re worried about then it's simple, don't go Old God." She punched Sara lightly in the arm. "Hey, come on. Chin up, deep breath. You're doing fine right now, aren't you?"

"But I could do better, I want it _so much_ , I want it so badly it hurts, Leira. But I'm scared. I don't know what to do," she whimpered.

And that was it. That was the ugly truth about Sara that Leira could so often gloss over. She was cruel. She liked torturing animals to death, then resurrecting them just so she could _keep_ torturing them. She had no problem with mind controlling people into unthinking slaves to get what she wanted, with reading their every private thought. She giggled when storms blew in and when streets flooded, when houses burned. Sara thrived off pain and misery, and it was only for whatever reason that she'd made an exception for Leira during their younger years. But everyone else wasn't as fortunate. At best, they were nobodies to Sara. At worst, they were stress balls. And her explanation about what she'd found in Ulduar made sense in light of those facts.

Sara was not a good person.

She was limited because she wasn't all powerful. Sara was one of the bigger fish in the pond, but she wasn't a shark and she behaved lest she get their attention. But if she suddenly didn't have to worry about the Alliance, about the Horde, about all the neutral guilds and factions, about the Aspects and the demons, then... well, she did just say she was an _Old God._

And here she was openly admitting to Leira that she wanted to destroy the world.

Taking a deep breath, she turned her glowing eyes to the door. "Sara, I'm not going to lie. This is _so_ far beyond what I'm qualified for. I'm a twenty-four year old warrior in a little guild in Ironforge with a broken arm. I don't know anything about Old Gods other than the fact that they want to kill me and everything I hold dear."

"I don't want to kill - "

"Be quiet," she chided, retracting her left hand. "I don't know how to explain to you that I really like Azeroth not turned inside out, I don't know how to explain to you that wanting to destroy it is abhorrent, that you shouldn't want to because why? I don't know what it's like to be you, I can just guess. But." She sighed. "Okay, here's the deal. You want to destroy the world, but you're worried about the four of us, right? I'm flattered. All I can really say is, go take a walk around and ask yourself if things are really that bad. Are you willing to risk my life, your parents' lives, _your_ life, just to be able to make a few extra earthquakes?"

Slowly, the warlock nodded. "Alright, I'll give it a shot." Suddenly she looked over at her. "Leira, do you have any stationary? I need to write to my folks."

Leira pointed to the shelf. "Right over there."

"Thanks." Sara stood and walked over to it, grabbed the equipment, and started writing. "And... I'll think about what you said." She laughed tiredly. "Thanks for putting up with me, Leira. Even if I am a sadistic, psychopathic soul-eating eldritch tentacle god."

* * *

Sara

  


The next day, Sara found herself in Stormwind. She had taken the Deeprun Tram and slept during the ride, which was a uniquely horrible experience.

She'd dreamed, too. Or rather, remembered her past life. She'd seen the world through a sliver of Yogg-Saron's perspective, watching as it ate the souls of those its servants sacrificed to it. She remembered the taste, the disgusting rush of power, the way the silvery streaks were stretched thin and torn asunder under the Old God's magic, and she'd woken up hungry.

She had breakfast in a little pub. She'd sat in a corner booth, giving death glares to anyone who moved in her direction, and ate a simple meal that tasted so bland compared to the magical flavor of souls that human tongues had no way of registering.

What was she going to do? She didn't know. Walking around Stormwind, with her hair color disguised as blonde, Sara found her gaze wandering. Canals that she pictured boiling, or filled with lava. Shops that she imagined letting loose her magic upon.

An Old God. She was an Old God. Everything about Sara, from her hair to her fingers to her feet, was just some body she had hijacked before it could even develop a soul of its own. A suit made to hold in the roiling, unfathomable powers of Yogg-Saron. Her magic. Her likes, her interests. All of it made so much sense in the light of this new knowledge.

Even her name, Sara, was identical to what Yogg-Saron called its vrykul projection. Small world.

The temperature was moderate and the streets were lightly sun-kissed. Sara imagined what it would be like to turn the skies red, or purple, or white. To enslave air elementals and create a storm the likes of which hadn't been seen in sixty thousand years. To never have to fear for her safety ever again. To be able to single-handedly crush the entire Burning Legion.

But could she risk it? If she changed back into an Old God, she had so much to gain... but _everything_ to lose. Maybe Leira was right. She had a good life here. And to make things better, all the vast, phenomenal knowledge of an Old God was at her fingertips. She could study its magical knowledge for centuries and still not come close to scratching the surface. There were all sorts of spells Yogg-Saron knew, all sorts of problem solving tools and equations. For instance, while searching for a portal in Dalaran she'd developed a spell that could instantly destroy every demon on the planet.

The only problem was everyone on the planet put together didn't have enough mana to pull it off. Scaled down versions were possible, but still hideously impractical.

But even without the whole 'instant win' spell there was so much she could learn. So much damage she could do. Sure the spells were complicated at first glance, but she didn't need to understand their every detail, she just needed to cast them. Of course it'd be pretty damn easy to cast them if she went back into her old body. And even if she stayed as a human, her soul was immortal. After dying she'd just find another vessel to possess. _If_ she died; she was fairly certain that there was an immortality spell somewhere in Yogg-Saron's vast treasure of wisdom.

People walked around her. She barely noticed them. Rations were probably being handed out. It didn't matter. She could teach herself how to conjure permanent food, and while she'd never cast an arcane spell in her life it couldn't be hard with an Old God's memories giving her pointers. After all, Yogg-Saron had cast _frost_ magic while using the Sif projection.

And the mind control techniques. _So many_ mind control techniques. Sara hadn't even scratched the surface of how to manipulate people. Precise memory replacement. Hormone balancing. Body temperature control. So much she could figure out. And it wasn't like she couldn't figure it out on her own; she _had_ figured it out, then died and forgotten it all, but now she could teach herself again.

She found herself in Old Town, meandering down the streets towards the barracks. She found herself in a room filled with training dummies, open to the public. Figures of straw and wood surrounded her, with frowning faces painted on their heads, holding ineffectual wooden swords and shields. Rooted in place, utterly helpless to fight back against her.

With both hands at her sides, she flicked her fingers up and a green, shimmering barrier of magic surrounded her. That was another spell she could improve. She'd figured out a basic shielding spell on her own, but she could make it an _immunity_ spell. It would block more than just projectiles. Blasting spells, curses, afflictions, she would remain unscathed as long as it wasn't dispelled.

Sara shook her head. Focus. She was here to try... why was she here? Because she'd wandered there while trying to figure out what to do with the knowledge that she was the Old God of Death. There was a spell she wanted to try, an improvement over shadow bolts. A blast of shadow magic that would harm and actually, actively try to drive the target insane. But instead of focusing on the psychosis spell she felt like just... like just... !

"RRRAAAAAA!" she shouted, hideous amounts of magic swirling along her arms and exploding outwards in the form of a colossal, unrefined shadow nova, sweeping her shield away. When the clinging mist of her shadow magic cleared, she saw that every one of the reinforced dummies had been torn asunder. Good. Her magic was many times weaker than when she'd been standing next to the corpse of Yogg-Saron, but it was good to know she was still as powerful as when she got on a boat to Kalimdor what seemed like a lifetime ago. She turned around and walked out of the door, letting her feet carry her to wherever.

After an hour or so, smoke and fire filled her nose. The Dwarven District, huh? She didn't go there often. Crowds bustled around her, carrying metals and materials, bashing hammers all around her, slag and sparks flying about in the corners of her vision. Sara didn't care.

What was she going to do?

She was Yogg-Saron. It was practically her destiny to change back into an Old God. That was literally the entire reason she existed, so she could finish up what she'd nearly finished in her past life. But if she changed back...

... she couldn't. She had to. She wanted to. She shouldn't.

From the Dwarven District she ended up walking around Stormwind Lake. The waters were still and calm, reflecting the sun above. Grass swayed in the breeze, and trees rustled their branches as wind drifted through them. Insects and birds buzzed and sang in the distance, and the air smelled of humid flowers. It was the perfect scene of peace and harmony, and Sara had to fight the urge to turn it upside down.

In the middle of the lake was a small island, where shamans and members of the Earthen Ring gathered around some binding stones to do... whatever it was shamans did. To the left was another island, with Pandaren structures built onto it. She could make out one or two figures near the lakes in that direction, probably monks training.

She could go there, and probably get some 'deep spiritual advice' from them that would make everything _just right_ because suddenly she'd understand what to do with herself. Or she could not go there.

Sara found a comfortable seat on the lake shore and sat in it. There was some sand between the blades of grass, but the sun felt nice on her face and the wind ruffled her hair pleasingly. She closed her eyes and started hypnotically swaying in place as she thought over the dilemma.

She had to think this over calmly and logically. What was her problem?

Sara was the Old God of Death reincarnated. She wanted to destroy the world and rule Azeroth in unending madness for the rest of time. At the same time, doing so would hurt her loved ones badly, and there was a chance she herself would die. But she still _yearned_ to unmake Azeroth.

So the problem was she wanted to do something, but if she did it the people she cared about would be hurt.

What was the first solution that came to mind? The first solution Sara could think of was to mind control herself, make herself not care about them, or not want to destroy the world. Either one. Unfortunately there were some... _technical_ details with her magic, so she couldn't do it to herself. Sara wasn't about to trust someone else to change her thought lines either.

But maybe she could do something with that. The problem was a conflict of interests, so she simply needed to _get rid_ of one of the interests.

If she stopped caring about the three people in her life, then she could return to Yogg-Saron's body and rule Azeroth. She could have whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. If she didn't die in the process. She could lose everything or gain everything, and that was too much of a gamble even for her to take.

The other option was to... make it so she _didn't_ want to unravel the planet. That was the safer option, and Sara could certainly do with some safety after what she'd been through. Maybe that was the thing to do. Start being nice to people, treat them like they were actually relevant, even if it meant giving up on dancing mountains, giving up on being worshiped, giving up on eating souls, of being invincible.

Maybe she could just wait. Her soul was all but indestructible and if she waited long enough, she could outlive her parents. She could, eventually, outlive Leira. Then it was a simple matter of going back to her old body... and she might still die when she did.

So it was decided then. Sara would have to teach herself to be kind, caring, noble. Not just the facade of it either, but to genuinely be a model citizen. Still sitting by the lake, she frowned. Ugh, already the idea made her feel nauseous. But how to best go about it?

... Sara drew a blank. She just didn't know. Maybe she should just go and try. But there had to be something else she could do in the meantime.

Her eyes opened and she grinned wickedly. That was right. She had all the knowledge of Yogg-Saron at her disposal. With that she could hurt the demons, hurt them in ways that reforming their bodies wouldn't help. Her thoughts began racing: what if she could fight the Legion _and_ train herself to see the best in people at the same time? She knew just the way!

Sara stood and turned around, heading back to the Dwarven District.

It was time to join a guild!


	23. Chapter 22: Comfort Zone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

The ride back to Ironforge was just as miserable as the ride to Stormwind.

Sara leaned back on a seat as the Deeprun Tram sped by at dizzying speeds. Above her, columns of water sped by, separated from her by only a layer of glass. If the tram were slower she likely could have made out fish, plants, and rock formations, but as it was she was traveling incredibly fast. There were a few other passengers, but they were all on the cars in front of her, giving her a car all to herself. Such a shame.

Deciding not to waste her time, Sara spent the trip going over how to cast the spell she had in mind. The spell matrix was incredibly complex, and while the theory alone would take her weeks to fully understand, imitating it was less of a task. It was superior to a shadow bolt in every way save for simplicity. It was more damage for _less_ mana, and the part that really intrigued her was that, if she hit the head, it would use its power to begin rearranging the victim's thought lines. There was a mathematical formula that Yogg-Saron had used to create the spell; everything with a mind would be affected by the spell. They would be increasingly driven to see Sara as an ally, and their allies as enemies. They'd go insane.

It was something that demons couldn't recover from just by reincarnating. Even if she didn't fully sway them, they'd be jumpy and nervous and doubtful.

Still lying on the Deeprun Tram, she held up her left hand and let violet Old God magic swirl between her fingers. She put the spell together piece by piece, minute by minute. There weren't many safe places to aim it, and testing the madness inducing effects would be tricky, but Sara was on the back-most car so she aimed her magic out the back and unleashed the psychosis spell.

The mechanical lights around her dimmed for a moment. The Old God magic in her hand collapsed into a point and then _burst_ outwards. If Sara blinked, she would have missed it. A jagged lance of purple lightning zig-zagged through the air in an instant, and the tip struck around where Sara had been aiming. The Tram was still moving, so the flicker of shadow magic caused by the impact zipped out of sight almost instantly, but the recoil knocked Sara on her back.

She blinked. Whoa.

The tunnel of water receded, and Sara tried again. Casting the spell was a little easier the second time around; it only took one minute as opposed to five. She braced herself as well, and when the lightning bolt of madness lashed at the ground the kick didn't make her budge.

While waiting to arrive in Ironforge she kept practicing the spell, over and over. By the time the Tram started to slow down, Sara got her cast time down to roughly ten seconds. Still not really suitable for combat, but she hadn't been practicing long and it was a _very_ tricky spell.

Sara stood and grabbed a nearby bar to steady herself, cracking her back. Old God spells aside, she was almost in Ironforge and she hadn't forgotten her plan. Join a guild. They help her turn demons inside out, and at the same time she'd be around all sorts of people and could force herself to befriend them. It'd be grueling work, but the alternative was to... yeah.

The Deeprun Tram slid into its station, a little cube box of metal and wire, and stopped with a gut-wrenching jerk. Everyone disembarked with shaking legs and kinks in their back. Sara zapped a rat with her psychosis spell, instantly killing the rodent. She killed a few more before being satisfied enough to exit into Tinkertown.

The tunnel to Tinkertown had rotating gears outside the wall, far enough that she wouldn't be hit but close enough that some idiot had probably been killed by them in the past.

Tinkertown itself was surprisingly large for a small people, even if the gnomes _had_ taken back Gnomeragan ten years ago. Some gnomes still resided in the area, walking in lines between various shops on the outskirts, engrossed in reading material, and generally almost making Sara trip. Tinkertown's ground was made of overlapping metal plates bolted together, and in the middle was a podium surrounded by spinning gears; the podium was empty. Around the perimeter of Tinkertown were stores, houses, and mailboxes all sized for the gnomes who still lived there, and above them the vaulting walls were covered in all sorts of yellow pipes that dove in and out of the metal plates they were attached to. The sound of rattling gears filled the air and it smelled of burning oil.

Sara didn't stick around long, and she headed to the left exit. The tunnels that left Tinkertown had entrances shaped like gears, similar to the tunnel from the Deeprun Tram. As she walked to the Military Ward, Sara pondered how exactly she would go about the process.

Guilds didn't technically have to be in the Alliance military; however most ones took part in combat and so were technically part of it. They could be ordered around as such, with their own varying authority depending on their accomplishments. If she joined up a guild, she would have to submit an application, be interviewed, and go through background checks. Of course there was one little problem. As far as the Alliance knew, she was last in Nethergarde roughly a week ago. She was certain everyone in Nethergarde was dead, so if she just suddenly appeared after a week, in Ironforge instead of Stormwind, that was going to raise some eyebrows.

Sara obviously couldn't tell the truth about why she hadn't died, so she needed to start coming up with a very convincing lie. That was going to be tricky, but nothing she couldn't figure out. She briefly entertained the idea of going to the main Alliance army first to clear up her situation, but decided against it. It'd be better to go to a guild, let them figure out who she was, have the main army learn of her through second hand, and so on. Force them to jump through hoops. Though she _would_ need an excuse... she'd probably need to use some mind magic as well.

From what she knew, the guild application process took a few steps. First she needed to go in and, obviously, request to enter. She'd then be given a form to fill out and hand in. After the form was reviewed she'd be brought in for an interview, after which a background check would be conducted. Or maybe before the interview, she wasn't sure. Once her form was in place, her interview went well, and her background check revealed nothing criminal, she'd be in the guild.

Then it was only a matter of time before the Alliance military got wind of her survival and came after her. With any luck she'd have a few weeks for the war and bureaucracies to weigh them down, but...

... oh well.

The Military Ward of Ironforge was as cavernous as she'd thought; she hadn't gotten a good look last time she was here. The ceiling vaulted up to a dizzying height, and she wondered why the dwarves would build so high. It did nothing to make her forget that she was underground , a reality that made her skin itch and her breathing weak. In the center was a little dip filled with burning coals, hilariously open for the public to fall into. Banners hung over open doors, and to the left was a large, elaborate series of stairs and gateways into what she remembered was a war room. She already knew which of the many doors lead to the Chimes of A'dal guild hall - really, was there any other choice? - but... instead of walking there, Sara hesitated.

Heh, surely she could spend some time practicing her magic on the nearby training dummies. She was in no rush, right?

Hahah.

Right.

The Military Ward connected to the center of Ironforge through a wide, wide tunnel that went to the Great Forge at the middle. On one side of the tunnel, training dummies were laid out. Most were small, about the size of a human, but one in particular was gigantic and looked as though it'd take an Aspect to destroy. The only person currently present was a night elf man practicing on one of the sturdier dummies, right next to the tall one.

Sara moved along until she was at the very end of the row of straw people and fixed her chosen dummy with a glare. She brought her hands up in a casting stance and began focusing on the spell again. For having just started it only a few hours ago, she'd made a lot of progress. Already down to ten seconds, even if she didn't entirely understand the theory behind it. That was good progress, but still completely useless for combat. Yogg-Saron, at a fraction of its power, could cast it every single second with perfect aim. She didn't think she'd be able to do _that_ well, but she could at least get it to two or three seconds.

With her casting stance settled, she summoned her Old God powers again and began stitching the spell together, piece by piece. Her focus slipped though, and added even more time to her casting. Luckily once she got it, her years of sparring paid off and she blasted the dummy right in the head. A burst of dark violet fog surrounded it, slowly drifting to the ground and fading away.

Hmm. She could do better. She'd go apply to a guild once she got it down to five seconds. But no stalling after that!

Another beam, ten seconds.

Nine.

Eleven.

On and on, Sara kept casting. The spell wasn't very mana intensive, and with her mana pool practicing it was easy. Slowly but surely she got better at tying the spell together. She grouped parts of it into chunks to help memorize it. Nine seconds. Eight. Seven, six. Each magical bolt sent a small shockwave of mist away from the dummy's head,

Her stomach rumbled, and she grimaced. She still had some gold left over from her thieving in Dalaran, so she pushed herself a little more until she managed to cast the psychosis spell in five seconds. Sara did it a few more times to be sure it wasn't a fluke and, satisfied with her improvement, went about getting herself something to eat for lunch. Or maybe dinner. It was hard to tell time underground, which was just another reason that it was awful.

She found a dwarven woman roaming around selling bread. It wasn't exactly a hearty meal, but it was okay in a pinch and Sara had to admit, the loaves were very warm, freshly baked and just perfectly spongy. Very cheap too, she still had roughly seven gold left over and that could last her a bit if she was careful. Worst came to worse, she'd have to mug someone again, and with all the new spells she was thinking about toying with it wouldn't be as hard as it was last time. It would only take a couple of hours to find someone and...

She was stalling and she knew it.

"Come on Sara, get a grip," she growled at herself. She walked back to the Military Ward and towards one of the far corner guild halls. There was no door, rather there was just a relatively small gate in the stone walls that admitted both entrance and exit. It didn't take long to approach it while weaving between the relatively light crowds, and she didn't even have to duck her head to get inside.

The first thing she saw was a split path; one branch went left and the other right. Thankfully, a little sign was placed over each, signifying that the left tunnel was for guild members, and the right tunnel was for applications. There was some murmur of noise coming from the left, but she - obviously - went right. In moments the tunnel opened up into a skillfully carved waiting room. There were cushioned seats along the walls as well as little shelves that held pencils. Dwarven paintings of Dun Morogh lined the walls, and glass lanterns filled with glowing bugs gave a shifting, dim glow to the room's red walls.

Most notably, there was one wall bearing an open window into a room behind it. In the other room there were tables with papers arranged into stacks, pencils and quill pens, and one dwarvish woman sitting on a chair that put her at eye level with Sara.

She let a shiver run through her body and smiled warmly. "Hi!" Sara chirped, approaching the window. "I'd like to apply for the Chimes of A'dal, can I have a form?" she asked in an upbeat, cheery voice that hid how desperately she wanted to run or kill or mind control her way in.

The dwarf nodded. "Sure can!" The older woman reached over and took some papers from a stack and slid them over to Sara. "Just fill out this information and hand it in, I'll help you through the rest of the process. Do make sure you know what you're getting into, with the war and all."

Sara frowned. "Yeah, the war." She took the papers and an offered pencil.

The war that she, if she stopped being a coward, could win single handedly by changing back into an Old God.

She pressed a hand against her forehead. No, no, none of those thoughts. She was doing this specifically to stop having those thoughts. She went to a seat and plopped onto it, resting the forms on a nearby stand.

Glancing at the various lines she had to fill out, Sara frowned. This was it. The moment she handed this paper in, it was only a matter of time before the Alliance found her. Maybe she'd be better off learning a shapeshift spell from Yogg-Saron - surely it knew one - and going to the Horde. But that had a whole - ahem - _horde_ of problems on its own. She'd need to be fluent in Orcish, she'd need to have a good understanding of the places to go, people to contact, locations to use. It'd probably be less of a headache to let the Alliance military get close to her and then 'convince' them to leave her alone. And if things went _really_ wrong she could go to Northrend and help the dragons.

She filled out her name. She filled out her race, her gender, her date of birth, place of birth, and much more. She checked boxes about her income. She checked boxes about her physical capabilities. Magical capabilities. Education. She wrote about her other skills, such as her time in a dueling club and both her expert-level inscription and enchantment skills. She made sure to mention her early graduation as a Magister, her skills, anything that could be seen as an attractive quality while obviously leaving out anything... sensitive. She wasn't applying for an academic position, so letters of recommendation and such weren't needed. It took some time, most of which was spent figuring out what she could and couldn't include, but Sara finished filling out the forms.

Her legs ached when she got up from her seat. The dwarf had, while Sara had been busy, started working on a newspaper crossword. "Alright, I've filled out everything! How long should I expect to wait before called in for an interview?"

The other woman took the papers and stacked them together more evenly. "Well normally the process takes a few days, but we're not exactly in peace time so it will be streamlined. An hour or two and someone should be by to conduct your interview."

Sara stared nervously at the papers. She could still request them back. Find another way. There had to be _something_ she could figure out if she just sat down for a few hours and thought hard. Instead she gritted her teeth behind a tight smile. "Is it okay if I just wait here for them to come get me?"

"It would be for the best, save us the trouble of having to find you. And my shift's not over for a while yet, so that's good."

"Mmhmm," she grunted, walking back to one of the chairs and collapsing into it. She crossed her legs and let her thoughts begin to wander. Sara tried to keep her thoughts off anything serious, she was doing _more_ than enough serious thinking recently. Her thoughts turned to her letter. Her parents wouldn't have received it yet, but she hoped that when they did any concerns they had over her 'death' in Nethergarde would be assuaged. She'd made sure to tell them that she was fine, that she'd had a hold up while trying to escape the Legion - she couldn't go _too_ in depth in case the military also read her letter - and included some personal facts about their family so they could know it was actually her.

Really, she should have sent that letter long ago. She was a terrible person for letting them worry so long. But at least now everything would be alright. They'd know she was alive, and she'd get into a guild. Sara would stop wanting to destroy the world, and the Burning Legion would, like every other time, be repelled by Azeroth's combined skill. The world kept turning, tides kept coming in and out.

It was fine.

Her thoughts drifted to her spellwork, then her thoughts went to Yogg-Saron's memories. She immersed herself in them, 'reading' the story of what it had done before the Titans came out of morbid curiosity. In her mind's eye she saw... tornadoes. She saw blood rain. Sara went further back. Everything had origins, and while the Old Gods had planted the idea that they were neverending beings from beyond that could never be touched, that was just a useful lie.

She knew their origins, but that was too far back. Yogg-Saron didn't know any useful magic _that_ far back.

Shadow magic. Arcane magic. How to turn Old God magic to arcane powers. Sara had only ever used shadow magic, but she wondered if maybe she could at least manage some basic fire spells? She looked at the matrixes the Old God had used to turn its powers to flame. They looked... manageable. Not here though.

Of course, thinking of being able to wield fire magic made Sara's thoughts stray to what it'd be like to burn Tirisfal to the ground. To go to Stranglethorn, built above the fifth and 'final' Old God, and incinerate the jungle. She dimly wondered if it would recognize her as Yogg-Saron, or as just another mortal to bend to its will, and a shiver ran down her spine. From what she could see of Yogg-Saron's memory, Tsa'Thannon was incredibly powerful even as far as Old Gods went. Not as cruel as Y'Shaarj or as mentally powerful as N'Zoth, but the images of its combat magic...

Eh, it'd probably recognize her.

Sara was startled from her thoughts - and possibly from a nap she didn't realize she was taking - by someone knocking on the wall next to her. She hardly even realized she'd closed her eyes, or that her throat was disgustingly dry. She glanced to her left to see that someone else had entered through the door. The man was dressed up in a fancy suit and tie, with black dress shoes to go with his outfit. He was rather handsomely built and as muscular as a pit lord, with dark skin and silver hair. "Miss Smithers?" he asked, looking down at her.

She stood and smoothed her dress. "That would be me." She held out her hand and smiled warmly. "I suppose you will be conducting my interview?" she asked, tilting her head.

He took her hand and shook it vigorously. Sara had to suppress a wince. His grip was tight and his skin was unbearably cold. "Yes, I will. Please, right this way." She followed after him, back into the intersection room where they turned into the left hallway.

More doorways lined this second path, and she dimly remembered that one of them went to the guild's living quarters. The roof was uncomfortably low. Not so low she had to crouch, but low enough that she felt suffocated. He led her to the third door on the right, which did a few more ninety-degree turns through more doorways before she was led into another room.

This one's ceiling was comfortably high, and red borders went along the edges of the brown walls. Her legs felt like cold noodles, as she took in the sight of the professional-looking desk, with an overly padded chair behind it and a name plate that said "Coordinator of Applicants" without actually giving a name. The stacks of paper were uneven and the pencils misaligned. The man moved around behind it and gestured for her to take a seat on an equally padded chair.

He looked at one of the papers. She realized it was the application she had submitted a few hour ago. She didn't know exactly how long, though. "I hope everything was alright with my application?" she asked. "No hidden boxes I forgot to check or anything?"

"No, that's all right. So, I have a series of questions for you. Firstly, what brought about your interest in our guild? How have you heard of us?"

There would probably be repeat questions, to make sure she wasn't telling a story. That was fine. She hadn't lied _that_ much on the application. "I actually have a friend in here already, Leira Vindalis." He nodded. "Figured what works for her would work for me, we go way back. Also, I thought this would be a good place to help defend against the Legion."

"I see, so a prior contact." He wrote that down. "What skills do you have to offer us, miss?"

She held up her right hand and let violet magic play across her fingers, leaving dark mist hanging in the air. "I am a very powerful spell caster. I can instantly kill a dreadlord by casting a corruption spell on it." And now that she knew what she was, it made sense _that_ spell was so potent. "I can also manipulate thought processes with great precision. I can cure procrastination, alter pain tolerance, reaction times, and so forth. In addition I can manipulate souls to the extent where I can resurrect people who have been dead for up to a week, and I am an expert at both enchanting gear and creating glyphs."

"Resurrect hmm?" he asked. "What did you say the deadline for that was?"

"It varies based on body mass," she explained. "Heavier people are harder to bring back, but for humanoids it's generally around a week."

"I see." They discussed her education, training, and sparring in more detail, and sleep tugged at Sara's eyes even though she had no idea what time it was. At length, the man reached under his desk and fished something out. It was... oh. A compact version of a magic signature staff. Small stick, and a pinecone of transparent crystals. "Please cast into this as hard as you can, miss."

"Of course." She took the offered staff and gripped its end tightly. An orb of dark magic appeared around her hands, pulsing and writhing. Then she poured more magic into it and it turned Old God purple, then finally it turned death green, burning her arms and scorching her bones. She didn't squint or look away. Her Old God magic surged up the staff, siphoned off into the crystals where it turned back into necrotic violet, filling them like sludge. When she deemed the staff filled, she cut off the flow of power and handed it back to him.

He grabbed it carefully, as if afraid it would bite his hand off. He held up a hand to the crystals and arcane lights flickered between his fingers. He grabbed a pen and wrote some measurements in the margins of a nearby piece of paper. After a while, he nodded. "Your claims about your magical skill seem to be in earnest, miss. We still need to run some background checks, but we should have an answer for you in five to six hours."

So, five to six hours to perfect her alibi in a worst case scenario.

"Is it fine if I return to the application room in that period of time?" she asked. "I don't want to have to make you run around Ironforge looking for me."

"That's fine," he said. The man - whose name she still hadn't caught - stood and extended a hand. She did the same and shook the offered hand, wincing at his grip. "I think you'd make a great addition to our guild, Sara. I look forward to seeing you in a few hours. Though until then you don't have to stay here."

* * *

She spent most of the time practicing her psychosis spell. She didn't manage to lower her casting speed any more, but Sara felt like she had a better understanding of the sanity altering mechanism. There were some other spells she gave a cursory look, such as a spell to force two people to remain close together, and another spell similar to the Mortal Coil spell that would force them to separate, but mostly she tried to perfect the one spell in order to replace her dependency on shadow bolts. Sara napped some, grabbed some water, but mostly she pummeled dummy after dummy with her powers. After all, she had mana to spare.

There were clocks scattered throughout Ironforge. It was late at night when she had applied for the Chimes of A'dal, so time passed on and on until it was early morning when she'd be accepted or not. Sleep pulled fiercely at her eyes, but she ignored the reflex and retraced her steps through the toasty, subterranean hallways back to the guild hall. Hopefully she wouldn't have to keep treading old ground soon. She wanted to get out there and start testing her new spells on living beings.

In the middle of the Military Ward, she paused and took a few deep breaths. _Patience, Sara,_ she told herself. Everything was fine. She was an Old God, she should be confident. Everything was under control. There was nothing they could do to hurt her.

The guild hall hadn't changed much. She returned to the application room - there was a night elven man there now - and took a seat.

"Hello," the man greeted. Ugh, that voice. There wasn't anything wrong with it per se, but he was talking and _not_ telling her she was accepted so she wanted to lobotomize him. "Can I do anything for you?"

"I don't think so," she explained. "I submitted an application for this guild and had my interview just a few hours ago. Came back after the recommended hours."

_Recommended time,_ she scolded herself. _I words good._

"And now here I am. Is there any news there about my application status? It's Sara Smithers."

"I'm sorry," he said, leaning on an arm. "But if you already performed your interview then it won't be here. How long ago was this?"

She thought back to the clock. "Five hours and forty seven minutes ago," she said.

"Five and forty..." He drifted off, scratching one of his luminescent gray eyebrows. "Hmm, they should be tracking you down right about - "

Footsteps echoed up the hallway and Sara turned around to see the same dark skinned man who'd interviewed her.

"- now. Speak of Sargeras and he shall appear."

"Very funny, ha ha," the man drawled. "Anyway Miss Smithers, we conducted your background check and everything seems to be fine." Internally, Sara turned to jelly. So her latest escapades hadn't made it in yet. Thank goodness for bureaucracy. Of course there was still a matter of when the rest of the Alliance took notice, but one thing at a time. For now, she was in.

Either way she stood and shook his hand. "I'm very happy to hear that," she chimed. "I look forward to being a part of your organization." He seemed a bit off put - too mechanical? - but returned her smile anyway.

"You'll receive a monthly stipend," he said, confirming what she'd read on the form. "And your beginner trial period will last until you first get it. In the meantime." He dug a hand into his suit's pocket and pulled out a little brown bag, which clinked with the metal it contained. "This should be enough to last through the rest of this month," he explained, handing it to her. "Your trial slip is also inside."

She was careful not to be too snappy about taking it. "Thank you very much," she said. "I suppose I'll just find my way to the training grounds," she offered.

The night elf still behind the counter smirked. "Right to work, I see? A wise decision."

After exchanging some more pleasantries and struggling to keep her magic down, she left the two men and pocketed the money with the rest. She breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, it was done. She was actually in Leira's guild. She could select an unoccupied room to stay in. She could rediscover and practice her old self's abilities in relative peace and comfort. She could make herself a better person.

Sara went deeper into the guild hall, marveling at the places she hadn't gone before. She didn't encounter anyone. They must've been elsewhere in Ironforge, out on mission, or training. She made her way to an armory, filled with chests upon chests piled so high she had to crane her neck. Most of them were labeled with names, but some of them were labeled 'free to use'.

Rifling through them, Sara found two bracers. They were made of a soft, flexible violet cloth, maybe netherweave, with two green gems over their middles. Sara slipped one on and bit down a yelp. A jolt of electricity raced from it along her skin, and even after the initial shock there was some _buzzing_ deep within her soul, in her magical power. She took the clothing off and eyed it warily.

"That's what enchanted gear feels like?" she muttered. "Huh."

She sorted through the 'free to use' gear for a few more minutes, inspecting all the cloth items made for spellcasters. A few of them were too small, or too large, and all of them sent a blast of power straight through her when she put it on. Sara couldn't wait to see what sort of damage she could do with a full set on. And there was also that one staff. It looked like it was made by the Twilight's Hammer, or maybe more likely the Cult of the Damned. Purple and blue, with spikes and handles, and an ending that looked like two dull axes surrounding a floating purple crystal.

The things she'd be able to do with that. But maybe later.

Sara closed the chest and walked out of the armory. There was still so much to explore and take in. She hardly even noticed she was underground now.

"Look ou - ah!" Sara turned around and -

Blue.

Then a force like a boulder hit her in the head and both Sara and the offender were on the ground. She stopped her head from cracking on the stone floor, and wiggled out from under the other person. She was calm. She was not going to kill them. She'd get kicked out of the guild and besides, it was just an honest mistake. People made mistakes. She made mistakes. It was _all_ good.

As the other person pulled herself up, they scowled. "Ugh, watch where you're - " Their eyes met. It was Leira, her arm still in a sling. What were the odds? "Sara?!"

A voice behind Leira spoke up. "Who's Sara?" A gnomish man stuck out his head behind the draenei, looking comically small next to her. "Hey, never saw you before. You new?" he offered.

"I am," she said while rubbing her left arm. That was probably going to bruise. "I actually got my trial slip just a minute ago!" Sara reached into her bag of gold and pulled out the little yellow slip. "See? I'm in here now!"

Leira was taller than her by a head, _and_ she had horns, so watching her glowing white eyes stare at her and blink in shock was an uneasy experience. Then, a wide grin spread ear to ear. "That's great!" With her good arm she lightly punched Sara, and then immediately frowned. "Hey Trickle, can you go on ahead? I need to speak with her."

"Sure thing, Lei!" Then the gnome was engulfed in a flash of arcane light, and when Sara looked behind her he had already blinked there. "I'll wait for you."

Leira turned back to her. "So, you're here. And I'm glad you're here, definitely won't turn down your help. But uh, why? I mean, in light of your, you know. You know?"

Right. That. The part where she terrified her only friend by telling her all about how she desperately wanted to bring about the end of days. "About that. I thought about what you said and I decided, no matter how many arguments anyone makes I'm still going to want to _go back._ So the only thing I can do is make it so I don't want to go back anymore, and I may as well help with the war while I'm at it, so here I am." She remembered how Leira had reacted to her 'faceless' magic in Silithus. "Is that okay?"

She was almost too quick to nod. "Of course! I saw what you did to those cultists, definitely want to see more of that. But..." The warrior tapped her chin. "If you're going to be coming on assignments with the folks, then I don't think you're quite up to the amount of walking, jogging, and hiking we need you to do."

All of a sudden she had a bad feeling about this. "Um, what are you getting at?" she asked nervously, taking a step back from the draenei.

Then, Leira lurched forward and grabbed Sara's shoulder with her good hand, turning her around. "Come on, I'll show you our track! It's gonna be a bit longer before my arm heals, so until then I'm gonna whip you into shape!"

Sara didn't quite regret joining the Chimes, but she had a feeling that she would before long.


	24. Chapter 23: I Spy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

Sara threw herself into her work with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, so did Leira.

Laps around all of Ironforge, including through the sweltering heat of the Great Forge and the bitter cold of Dun Morogh right outside. Bench presses. Sit ups. Pull ups. Oblique crunches. Squats. Hundreds and hundreds of pushups.

Back in Stormwind, she'd never been a complete slouch. Sure, the academic spellcaster life was sedentary, but Sara went to duels, she walked to the Park, she lightly jogged around it, she ate well. She got enough exercise that she could, say, walk through the city of Ulduar without too much exhaustion. But it seemed Leira was fully intent on _murdering_ her. Sara chose a dormitory for herself, and seemingly every day she crawled into bed sore and tired. She knew it'd get better. She knew that if she didn't get this out of the way now it'd come back to bite her. But that didn't make it any less miserable.

When Sara wasn't busy being murdered, she was either working on her spells or on her craft. The public training dummies were an option when she happened to be there, but the Chimes of A'dal had their own room specifically for magicians and, by the time a week had passed, Sara could get her psychosis spell cast in just over two seconds, and she'd made significant progress on the mind malady spell. Each day she practiced her magic, she went without any enhancing gear, with only a staff to prevent over channeling, and worked until her mana pool ran dry. By then, the entire field was usually engulfed in a steady miasma of Old God magic that took her another half hour to clean up.

She was never court martialed, or investigated, or anything. Sara wasn't sure why that was the case. Maybe the people in charge didn't care enough about her, thought they already knew what happened and it was nothing important. Maybe her paperwork slipped through the cracks. Maybe the war was going so poorly that they were just glad she was back. Or maybe it was going to happen, but hadn't yet. Either way, thank goodness for small miracles.

There was a lot to do, and Sara didn't get a lot of chances to socialize. What chances there were usually involved nameless, faceless people congratulating her on her trial period, welcoming her to the guild, and other meaningless drivel like that.

She got a guild tabard, which was a blue piece of cloth with a picture of a naaru over it. The naaru was faced forward, revealing its glowing core and the chandelier-like shards that rotated around it. Whenever she wore it, the symbol of the holy creature seemed to twist and writhe against her body in protest. The gold she'd gotten was more than enough, and she could eat well and eat fearlessly. Which she needed, because if she didn't eat enough Leira's workout was going to run her into the ground.

Sara also discovered they had a bank. It wasn't especially elaborate, but there were raw materials and gold inside which, with proper reasoning, could be taken out for use. There was fel iron, cobalt, titanium, shielded thorium, spices, herbs, everything she could think of.

Which was how Sara found herself in her little room with a few rolls of heavy parchment, a feather pen, a pot, an ink fountain, and a rod of saronite the size of her fist.

It was warm to the touch, and pulsed in time with her heartbeat. Just being around it cleared her head and made her thoughts flow easily. Her daily exercise was behind her - and it was finally getting easier - plus she'd eaten a big dinner, so now she could devote all her brainpower to her task.

It was simple, in theory. Yogg-Saron's blood was normally as fluid as any other liquid. It was even less viscous than water, at least inside Yogg-Saron. Within the Old God was a powerful acid that kept its blood from congealing. Once free of this acid, saronite become as thick as honey and, when subjected to geological pressures, it congealed further into an incredibly strong and lightweight metal.

Solid saronite wasn't useful for her immediate intentions. She needed it to be liquefied again. To do that, she'd need to do some rather complex spellwork to its molecules. Luckily, Yogg-Saron had already done the hard part. She just needed to plug in the values and cast it from there, and she hadn't done much magic training today so she had a lot of mana to work with. Sara put the off-green bar into the pot and stared into it. Then, she called up her magic until it was bright purple, and pointed a hand at the saronite. A similar aura engulfed the metal, and she began.

The first three minutes were spent casting the spell. After that she sustained the power and waited for the magic to do its thing.

A minute went by.

Then another.

It was hard to notice, but by the third minute she could tell the saronite bar was melting. Thick droplets formed on its surface, and a puddle appeared on its bottom. As time passed it kept shrinking, like butter on a stove, until there was black sludge in the pot and nothing solid remained. At that moment she let go of the spell and breathed in sharply.

"Now I have a pot filled with Yogg-Saron's blood," she said to herself. She grabbed the glass vial and poured the blood inside until it was half full, then took the pen in her right hand and twirled it between her fingers. "What can I make with _that_ as an ink?" she pondered. She dipped the pen into the vial and tore off a small section of the parchment, and pondered.

"Maybe if I add a nullification triangle there... "

"No, the power flow will cancel out the intake... "

"It doesn't have enough thaumatic resistance; I need to make the ring smaller."

Glyphs were poorly understood outside the inscription field. The general idea was the ink, the parchment, and the shape of the ink would make a complex magical field and add an effect to some spell. Usually this was done by shuffling the spell's effects around. A frostbolt could lose some of its physical force but be made much colder. Or the glyph itself could passively draw on the leylines and give an effect without other drawbacks. It was agonizingly precise work, and the act of magically grafting a piece of inked paper onto someone's soul - at the cost of said inked paper - was complicated but risk free.

Sara's glyph in particular would have a purely additive effect, but that was tricky to do. The advantage of Old God blood was how easily it could take in and manipulate both magic and emotions, and its range of 'things it can do' was effectively limitless. However its polarity was also reversed, meaning it tended to do harmful things to lesser beings. If Sara wanted her experimental glyph to work, she needed to make it do the _exact_ opposite of what she wanted, and then rely on the negation.

But she was an expert at this. It took a few do-overs, but by midnight the glyph was done and after checking, double checking, and triple checking it, Sara went to bed.

That night, like every night since touching Yogg-Saron, Sara dreamed.

She dreamed...

She dreamed...

_She remembered._

_She remembered being gargantuan, her body stretching for miles and miles and miles, and if her senses were what she had then she would have been able to feel every inch of her betentacled body clutching into the land, the polluted air washing around her limbs, the smell of blood and souls of the sacrificed flowing into her millions of mouths._

_Another Old God fought against her. This one was sandy, and while its powers weren't quite as strong as hers the tentacles were sharp and barbed, muscled far beyond even her own crushers. Green eye beams ricocheted around her body, and Sara launched millions of spells every second. They fought and wrestled with each other, dispelling and resummoning magical barriers, and whenever one of them was cut open their black blood formed amalgamates and animi that continued to battle._

_The other three Old Gods formed a ring around her and C'Thun as they fought, shouting advice and encouragement to fight harder. Their magic weakened the tremors, but they allowed some to go through the land and shake the globe. Her blood pulsed and her brain whirled as she fought and fought, neither her nor the other yielding in their spar. Sara cast spells in far greater quantity, complexity, and power than she could ever have imagined, and even as her dream self cast the spells she instantly forgot how they were performed._

_The dream shifted. Both she and C'Thun were battered and wounded, their mana not even half depleted. She and the other Old God healed their wounds. She opened her many gibbering maws - she was only aware of a few at a time - and said, "Fssh'n iggska, C'Thun. Sk'tagn ma shtr naggwv." She forgot the meaning of the words the moment they were uttered._

_It responded, "Ilfah paal hoq, Yogg-Saron. Makk, N'Zoth, Y'Shaarj, ilith iggska."_

Then she woke up, gasping for breath and scrambling to make sense of the foreign language. She looked around; it was pitch black since the candle she had lit earlier had sputtered out. Sara swung out of bed and fumbled in the darkness for a moment before lighting another candle. A glance at the clock confirmed it to be early morning. She got dressed, put her tabard on, ate the breakfast she'd brought to her room last night, and looked over at the saronite glyph. She checked it a few more times, just to be sure, then grabbed it and stashed it in her pocket. As an afterthought, she wrote a note and put it next to the Old God blood, telling people not to touch it.

She headed out into the guild hallways, and frowned. In stark contrast to yesterday, where it had been mostly deserted, it was now crammed tight. People of all races in the Alliance pushed and shoved. Some were in enchanted gear - cloths and plates and mails - but most were in plain clothes like her. Still shaking off the dregs of her dream, Sara felt the urge to challenge one to a duel. It wasn't like she'd _lose_ after all.

"Hey, newbie!" a night elf said behind her.

Like so often these days she ignored the urge to tear his soul out; he sounded friendly enough. Instead she grinned back at the white-haired man. "You got me. Where's everyone headed?" she asked as they went past the storage rooms.

"Assignments, come on. If it's your first time you'll be sent out with me," he said, pointing at his chest.

"First time, yeah." She slowed down until she was neck and neck with him.

A passing dwarf punched her in the arm and said, "Welcome to the team". Several other mortals did the same and by the end she blushed terribly.

"Alright, just stick with me," he explained as they turned a few more bends. Eventually they emptied into a cavernous room, shaped like a circle cut down the middle, which must have been the meeting room. Several other tunnels went in and out, and banners holding the image of a Naaru hung from the rafters.

On a raised podium, near the 'cut down the middle' part, an old human man stood. He wasn't armored, but he did wield a mace inscribed with holy runes and held a similarly engraved shield in the other. A few sheets of paper were down at his feet. To Sara's surprise, it seemed everyone in the guild attended and they could still fit in more. Everyone crowded around the podium, but there was still some space around the edges of the room for people to come and go. She and the night elf moved in to allow some more people, and after a few minutes the man lifted his weapons and clanged them against one another with deafening result.

"Settle down, settle down!" he shouted. Now that she wasn't jostling for room, Sara noticed the eye patch over his left eye. "Alright, thank you all for coming. First I need to take roll call." Putting his weapons down, he grabbed the sheet of papers and a pencil. The man started calling out names in alphabetical order, and each time he did someone confirmed their presence. "... Calven Norduke, that's me..." Must have been the guild leader. Eventually, the man went through the names without having called Sara's, though everyone else had been present. "Alright so, first order of business, we have a new recruit!"

Oh.

"Sara Smithers, if you could?"

It was okay to be the center of attention. It was okay to have these people interested in her. It was just a passing interest because she was new. They were being friendly, not looking to tear her down. She raised her hand and shouted, "Present."

"Glad to have you on board, miss! Now, on to business. Huan's team has had tremendous success in the Arathi Highlands, and it is important we compound on that advantage. So let me put it straight. We're going to help the forsaken." Shouts of protest erupted through the crowd, and Sara was one of them. The forsaken? Help _them?_ The people who had tried to kill her parents in Hillsbrad, who were souls living that shouldn't, who _needed to be dead?_ She was just as likely to kill them herself.

Calven banged his hammer against his shield until the uproar died down. "Oh quit your whining!" he shouted. "Undercity is surrounded and the Legion is all but ignoring them as they move further south. Guess who's next? That's right, _us._ The council and I have been coordinating with generals in both the Alliance and the Horde, we're going to be helping push the front lines back." Push the demons back, okay. That was a good plan at least. "The leaders for our war parties have already been selected. I'll call out their names and who's going with them. Once I have, go get geared up and head on out. Huan, Clarice..."

He continued calling out names a second time. Sara waited intently for hers to be called, or for Leira's. A selfish part of her wanted to be paired with the warrior, and she _did_ still have to give her the glyph. But...

"Darnall Skyshadow." The night elf beside her raised an arm as everyone turned to look for him. "Sproz Lightwheel, Jacob Brakewood, Sara Smithers, and Uztun Gotstran." A gnomish woman, a man with glowing blue eyes, and a draenic man all approached 'Darnall'. Once they were clustered around, he waved an arm and started to leave through a side corridor.

The four of them followed after and Sara let herself slink to the back of the line in order to get a good look at all of them. The gnome, who must've been Sproz, seemed only slightly older than her. Her hair was platinum blonde and woven together in a single braid, though the color looked too bright to be natural even among the gnomes. She looked to be already in her gear, a flashy robe made of black and white tiles that gave the impression of a white cloth with shadows behind it. No staff though. And since gnome eyes were comically large compared to their heads it was easy to make out that they were amber.

The man, Jacob, was the only other person in their group of five wearing combat gear. It was heavy plate, stacked in layer upon layer with dark, cool colors painted onto it. If she squinted it looked almost like... no, she was right, that _was_ saronite armor. She didn't know whether to be offended or flattered. Her gaze wandered onto his skin, which was pale and clammy, and his eyes which glowed glacier blue. He was a death knight then? Undead. With that in mind, she decided she was offended by the saronite. His armor made him bulkier, but she estimated that without it she'd be taller than him. He was also bald, and his face was contorted in what looked to be a perpetual sneer.

The last of them was certainly Uztun, and interestingly enough he reminded her of Leira's dad. Sara hadn't met him much, she was just a kid when they'd lived in Greenvale, but Uztun was just as tall, and just as bulked with muscle. He wore his brownish hair in two braids that lay over his shoulders, his ears were pointed straight up, and his crest seemed to have one more plate than was normal. He caught her looking and flashed her a grin, so Sara scowled and finally pushed herself to the back of the line.

The glyph in her pocket felt heavy. She _badly_ wanted to get it to Leira before she left on mission. Then again it might not be the best idea to test it out in an actual combat scenario, but it _would_ work, she knew it, and it would be invaluable. Nothing world changing on its own, but if Leira had it grafted into her then she'd be much less likely to fall in battle.

Darnall led them to another storage room; there were several scattered throughout the guild hall. "Alright, everyone gear up." As they started to go through the chests, Sara going to the 'free use' ones, he began speaking almost too fast to follow. "Here's the long and short: Legion's been pushed back from Arathi to Hillsbrad and Hinterlands. We're heading over to Forge Camp: Malice, it's situated right between Sludgeguard Tower and the Dalaran crater. It's not so heavy on the machinery, but it _is_ filled with a lot of portals. They're leaching off the residue in the crater to power them, so our task is to get behind enemy lines and shut down their portals. Quick in, quick out. Considering the high number of demons we will encounter, this is going to be hairy so we'll need to run through and drag the demons behind us." He looked her way, but then swept his gaze along everyone else.

"Got it? Good. We've got a portal up to the Southpoint Gate, and from there we're legging it. Uztun, you should keep Immadino stabled."

Sara stifled a snort. Keep _who_ stabled?

She changed from her shirt and skirt into a grass colored robe that went down to her ankles, a light circlet around her head, some pads for her shoulders, and so on. She worked from head to toe and finished it off by grabbing a two handed staff made of glorious bronze and gold, painted green and with red gems in the joints. Sara slipped the staff into the holster on her back and took a deep, shaking breath. She closed several fists and grinned, magical power rushing through her system.

_Oh yes, I could get used to this,_ she thought.

Everyone else finished gearing up before long. The gnome, Sproz, tucked away some potions and flasks for them, and Darnall handed out packs for all five of them to fill with food and water once they arrived. Uztun grabbed a crossbow that looked like it weighed more than Sara herself, and Jacob, surprise surprise, took a runeblade off the walls.

"So newbie," the death knight began. "You ever been in combat before?"

"I won the dueling tournament in Stormwind's Mage Quarter," she said. "Also, I was ambushed by qiraji and the Twilight's Hammer in Silithus." _Also I ducked away from a demonic onslaught and fought beside dragons,_ she thought, but there was no way she was going to say that. "What's it to you?" she asked, letting experimental flickers of shadow magic run between her fingers.

"Just making sure how well I'll need to do my job," he explained. "Just don't go overboard on the demons and you'll be alright."

She stifled her retort. When he saw her magic in action, he'd shut up quick. "On that charming note, I made a glyph yesterday and I've been meaning to give it to Leira, but I haven't seen her all day."

Uztun answered her. "She should be meeting up with us near the portals, you should be able to give it to her then. What's it do?"

"Feeds off anger. The angrier someone is, the harder it'll be to hurt them," she explained. "My own invention."

Uztun finished strapping his mail armor to his body and stood. "Sounds useful, given her skillset. Darnall, we ready?"

The night elf slipped a leather cap onto his head, revealing naught but his glowing eyes. "Ready. This way," he said, waving an arm. The five of them left the room, which was already crowding with others searching for gear. Sara was again at the back of the crowd, still letting drops of darkness run along her gloves, busy scanning the crowd for Leira. Everyone was going off to fight in a war and they were all smiling, so cheerfully.

Because they were going to do something, not sit in a castle and hope they could hold out forever.

Darnall didn't lead her back into the assembly hall. Instead he brought her outside into the Military Ward, where a group of gnomish mages had set up a line of a dozen portals, presumably leading to various locations in the north. Her group went to one on the far left. Through it Sara could see blue skies and yellow grass.

Right before entering Darnall turned to look at her. "Anything we need to grab before we head out?" All four of them shook their heads. Sara would have liked to get the glyph inscribed... but she could do so later. This wasn't the first time Leira had fought in the war, and even if she did die... well, she'd miss the warrior dearly, but Leira was a shoe-in for the Light's afterlife.

On after another, the four of them plunged into the portal. She tucked her glyph away and, garbed in enchanted gear with a staff affixed to her back, Sara summoned her shadowy barrier and followed the mortals.

* * *

Talgath the Inexorable

He couldn't _wait_ to scour this world clean.

Progress through the Swamp of Sorrows was slow and miserable. The air was damp and filled with mold, and each step of his hooves into the loose soil had him sinking up to his ankles in swamp water. All but the strongest of their fire spells simply fizzled out pitifully. While Argolash had the advantage of four legs to distribute his weight, and he had his glaive to smash a path through the trees, progress was slow.

There had been reports of a clutch of green dragons residing in the portion of the swamp they would travel through, but they were nowhere to be found. But even _without_ the dragons, all of the wildlife seemed intent on making their progress as painful as possible. Crocolisks that looked like logs until it was too late. Animated beasts of fungus and grass. Giant crabs with pincers strong enough to puncture felsteel, frenzy fish, sentient slimes that could dissolve a felguard's armor in seconds, tallstriders, turtles with tough shells and tougher jaws, _even venomous spiders the size of a wrathguard!_ He kept losing soldiers, and making portals was slow going.

Talgath combined with his dreadlords and lesser eredar could corrupt the land. They could shrivel up the water and turn rotting dirt into blackened rock. But the aforementioned green dragons had left a parting gift, and the very water reviled against the Legion's taint. Each day they'd make little progress, set up portals where they'd arrived for their reinforcements, and push on for Deadwind Pass.

If it was just the environment and just the beasts, Talgath could perhaps accept the situation. But the Horde and Alliance were also present in the swamp, playing a guerrilla game of assassination and retreat. He had seen this strategy before. He had beaten this strategy before. But he had never had to do so in a swamp, and each time his dark magic flared to life and blasted a tree to splinters, the mortals behind it were already gone.

At the moment, he strode in the middle of his column. Infernals were useless, so he was surrounded instead by his dreadlords as they slowly brought the Legion's territory further and further. Gan'arg and mo'arg set up defenses behind them, though automated alarms suggested the mortals and/or wildlife were dismantling the machines behind them. The felguards and other such cannon fodder took up the perimeter, with void terrors sniffing for beasts. At the head of their little arrow of decimation, Argolash smashed his way forward.

The pit lord had certainly seen better days. Annihilan scales were tough, but the explosive-tipped arrows and odd concussive spell used by the raiding parties left small gashes and holes marking his body. Argolash bore it in stride, but his mane of fire was dimmed by the humidity and he'd even stopped laughing whenever he swatted aside a line of forestry.

It smelled. The putrid stench of rot and animal clung to him and Talgath hated everything about it. The swamp was silent save for the marching of their forces, the splintering of trees, and the occasional struggle between demons and either animals or mortals. But after so long they were finally, _finally_ through, because Talgath could see the mountains.

The Black Aspect Neltharion, before his corruption, had his brood maintain a series of mountains to divide regions to discourage war among the lesser races, with the mortals themselves making passes to enjoy trade. When he became Deathwing he had flattened a great many of those borders, but those erased mountains were mostly swallowed up in the Sundering anyway. Most mountains remained, only marginally smoothed by erosion, and Talgath's armies had at long last made their way to the trail that led out of the Swamp of Sorrows.

Argolash smashed aside the last of the trees and hefted himself onto the ramp. The pass was narrow, so everyone fell in line behind him as he trudged up. Talgath and his dreadlords finished corrupting the land out of the swamp, and then they were out. The Green Flight's essence was no more, and the defiling of the earth would now come passively.

Deadwind Pass was _vastly_ preferable to the Swamp of Sorrows. Miserly clouds choked the land, and there was not a drop of moisture to be had in the air. The only water was in the form of tepid, filthy streams that murmured so quietly, it was as though they feared they'd be beaten if they spoke up. The land was gray and pale, with little in the way of life. What vegetation there was died as they passed it, spreading their darkness. Tireless and angry, the Burning Legion pushed its way through the mountain pass, butchering the occasional ogre tribe, until the mountains opened up into the main body of Deadwind Pass.

A vast canyon dominated the area, with bridges both natural and artificial spanning the gap. With this space his armies could spread out, and Talgath gave the order to create a Forge Camp in the location. Dutifully, his minions went to work while he strode up to their resident pit lord.

"Argolash, rear guard. Go," he commanded brusquely. Just as brusquely, the annihilan grunted and went to the back of the rapidly emerging camp.

Their presence darkened the stone, but it was not so visible in such a dreary place. All the same, Talgath made sure he had personally corrupted a large enough area before calling over the nathrezim Lorthiras and the sayaad Domana. Both dreadlord and succubus arrived promptly.

Dutifully, they stood silently and awaited his command. "I am going to create a scrying circle," he explained. "Lorthiras, I hope you kept a record of the Old God magic we encountered?"

He nodded his ashen head. "I did, Lord Talgath." His wings came forward and cocooned him. When he retracted them, a felsteel cubicle appeared, hovering in the air. The container was a black and green cube the size of Lorthiras's horns, but in each of its six faces was a hole that went straight through the hollow interior, and in said hollow interior was a quiet ball of dark purple. It pulsed in tune with an unseen heartbeat. "You are going to find the mortal who used it?"

"Indeed." Talgath made a gesture with his right hand and the container floated into it. Meanwhile he raised his left hand, cloaked in demonic magic, and began his work. "We'll make a pit stop here to assess our strength. Duskwood and its city Darkshire lay just ahead, and we will be going through a choke point." Purple runes burnt themselves onto the ground, forming a vast circle around Talgath with him at its center. "While the gan'arg prepare for the Master's arrival, we will have time to spare. I intend to use this time to investigate this mortal." The symbols looped around and around, and even floated up into the air in lazy, everflowing spirals. "Stand back."

Still sustaining his magic, Talgath walked out of his own circle and willed the container into the analysis spiral. Shadow magic, straight from the Twisting Nether, surrounded the box and began poking at the foul power locked inside. The container shuddered in anguish, but the scraps of Old God power remained otherwise inert. Then the runes lit up brightly, and spherical projections began to appear in the air above it.

He frowned, and made some exclusion clauses in the ritual he hadn't thought to beforehand. The ritual was designed to show anyone who commanded this magic within a small margin for error. With the massive influx of leylines from nearby Karazhan, making it a worldwide sweep was simple as well, but that had another problem. He did not care about the various faceless locked beneath the earth, or the body of Yogg-Saron, or about some high elf cult leader. All he cared about was a human girl.

Most of the orbs simply vanished after he made the adjustment, leaving no more projections than he could count on one hand. Each of the women were busy doing something. Trekking across the land, sleeping, worshiping. "Domana. Which of these was the one who controlled you?"

She strode forward with an alluring sway in her step and licked the fingers of her left hand. "Hmm... that one, my _Lord,_ " she insinuated, pointing to a hologram near the right.

He looked towards it. The human in the projection wore dark green robes and wielded a metallic staff. Other mortals shifted in and out of view. Her face was angular, as though she were perpetually frowning, but everything else seemed to fit. "Her is it?" He willed the other projections to vanish and, after long minutes of casting later, summoned a final hologram, of Azeroth itself. The fragile marble spun in the middle of his scrying circle, and then the mortal girl's projection extended a line to one spot of land on it.

"Hillsbrad Foothills I see," he murmured, stroking his chin. "Interesting."

"Oooh," the succubus cooed. "Are you going to kill her? Can I have her first?" The demoness's expression darkened sharply, all business and no pleasure. "I still need to repay her for the fun we had last time," Domana scowled.

"Not ideally," he said, examining the little spot. "Fighting us or not, she wields the power of the Old Gods. Mortals do not just 'happen' across such power. They pursue it. They find it. It finds them, and they accept it, knowing full well what it does and what it encourages. I am certain that with just a little push, we can easily get her to see things our way."

"Fascinating," Lorthiras said, sounding as though he thought this the polar opposite of fascinating. "So you're going to recruit her."

"No." He turned to the succubus. "You are."

She stepped back and blinked quickly, a hand on her bare midriff. " _Me?_ "

"Yes." He turned back to the hologram of Azeroth. "You're going to make her an offer she can't refuse."


	25. Chapter 24: Attack from Behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

  


Hillsbrad Foothills was extremely different from what she remembered.

Sara had been born in a small village, far from Southshore. When she was a baby the forsaken had started advancing on the area, but the small size of her town let them escape detection long enough to evacuate to Elwynn. She had few memories of Hillsbrad, but she _did_ have them. Chilly autumn mornings, pastoral hills and fresh pine trees. Sea-touched air and fertile soil. Now however, with the forsaken having long ago sacked the area and taken control, the air was pallid and the grass was withered and dying. The trees grew branches at odd angles and a strange, slimy smell filled the air.

A big improvement, in her opinion.

That, of course, had been hours ago. After arriving in Southpoint Gate, Darnall led them through some checks in the former forsaken camp. Most of the undead were fighting in and around the Undercity, so the Alliance had, in their _infinite_ kindness and generosity, reinforced Southpoint Gate as a base to launch attacks against the tide of demons sliding south.

The gate itself wasn't truly a gate. It was two towers with a road going in between, leading to Silverpine Forest. Tents and structures were covered in purple cloth, emblazoned with the rotting face that was the symbol of Sylvanas's people. But Southpoint and all its rotting, undead denizens were behind her now, and instead she was hiking through the mountains with the other four.

Darnall, the night elf, took point. The hills were covered in defiled trees, making it easy to stay relatively undetected, not that there _were_ any demons nearby. They slunk from shadow to shadow, watching for any surprise attacks. Sara was protected firmly behind her dark shell, but the others... eh, she'd resurrect them.

She had no idea how close they were to their destination. All Sara knew was that they hiked for three days, running fast with the draenei hunter around, sleeping on compact bedrolls and eating small, nutrition-packed meals. Her physical condition wasn't as good as theirs, but it was good enough _now_ that she could keep up. And keep up she did for three days, until Darnall held his hand up in a signal for them to stop.

"We're here," he whispered. "I'll go scout in a moment. First, buff up. I'll go first." The night elf knelt and placed both his palms on the open soil. His eyes closed, and Sara eyed him in confusion. What was he... ?

Then he stood up and thrust his left hand into the air. A magical, orange pawprint flashed above him and the others, and presumably her own hea - _oh wow he's definitely a druid,_ she thought suddenly as the nature magic brought her to her knees, dry heaving.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

It took Sara a moment to get control of her stomach, but she waved his concern off. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Nature magic just feels weird to me." And now that the initial nauseating shock was gone, she _did_ feel much better than before. The dull ache in her legs was gone, her head was clear, it was the sensation of having the flu and then all at once _not_ having the flu.

"Good," he said. "Sproz, you're up."

The priest? Oh no. Sara braced herself as the gnome brought her hands together and whispered a prayer for safety and fortitude. A blazing white light formed around the short woman's feet and shone upwards, accompanied by a circular blue symbol above her head. Then the Light ever so briefly engulfed Sara.

Where the nature spell felt like something rejecting her, something disgusting and nauseating on the most fundamental level, _this_ was a flash of dragonfire on every inch of her skin. Her teeth ground together as the surge of heat washed over her, but as with the night elf's spell it faded quickly, and left her feeling tougher than before. Luckily the death knight seemed as pained by the Light, so nobody was paying attention to her as she stiffened under the pain.

"I have some spells too," she offered. "I need to do it one at a time, but it's very long lasting." More or less permanent, even. She approached Darnall and reached her powers into his mind. The process wasn't too complex, and she'd done it hundreds of times in Nethergarde. A little tweak there, deleting some obscure lines there, so on. Soon, she had successfully increased his reflexes and pain tolerance. Sara repeated the same for the others. Even the death knight wasn't too difficult. The necromatic magic around his thought lines seemed to buzz against her heart, but his actual mind was just as malleable as any other.

"Alright," Sara said after her work was done. "Should be quicker and tougher now. So, what's the plan?"

Darnall pointed in a direction. After some glancing at the sun, she realized it was due east. "Forge Camp: Malice is right that way. However, before we head in spells blazing, we're going to do some scouting. Like this." Then a flash of green plasma, filled with verdant leaves, burst around the druid's hand. Heavy white smoke enshrouded his form. The space around him collapsed, and when the fog cleared the night elf was gone. In his place was a giant wildcat, with twilight-blue fur and a silver moon marking around its face. It wielded claws as sharp as nails and sabreteeth like daggers. The feline shook its head and looked towards Sproz, who it was eye level with. "Sproz, mind vision me. I'll get you as close to the camp as I can."

"Got it," the priest said, her hands flashing with shadow magic. She closed her eyes, swaying in a trance, and then the cat that was Darnall lowered himself into the brush and stalked off, out of sight.

Mind vision. Sara had heard of that spell. She didn't know it, but she had developed something similar. It was more range dependent, but it worked by creating a link into a target's mind that she could activate whenever she wanted, regardless of whether she saw them. She couldn't learn the mind vision spell now though, learning new spells just by looking at them took days. And Sara had spent the time hiking developing a _different_ spell.

After some time, Darnall returned in his cat form, but Sproz was still busy channeling her spell. Her eyes twitched under their lids like she was fast asleep. After roughly an hour more of this, the magic around her hands faded, and her eyes snapped open. "Alright, let me draw." She picked up a stick as tall as her. "Can someone clear me some dirt?" Sara summoned her Old God magic and blasted a nearby patch of grass with bright violet energy. The plants withered and died in seconds under her onslaught until she stopped. "Thanks a bunch."

The gnome began drawing little lines in it. Arcs, circles, and a few dots. Before long she was done and instead used the stick to point. "Alright. We're here." she said, pointing to the inside of the arc. "The Forge Camp is this collection of circles. These three," she said, putting crosses on them. ", are the portals. The rest are basic infrastructure they use to construct their other machines. THIS one, however, is a fel reaver. It seems to be inactive. If we want to get there, it's a pretty long run along open territory. They must've expected something like this, because there are a bunch of fel cannons covering their flanks and _way_ too many demons close to the Dalaran crater to even consider going behind them."

"Do we have any option besides running across and dodging their fire?" the draenei among them asked.

She shook her head. "None that I can see. It seems like we'll have to brave it. I can keep you up though, I've got plenty of practice with fel cannon burns."

"How are we going to disable the portals?" Sara asked. "Go for the demons getting power from the crater, or the infrastructure?"

"Too many demons. Hundreds of them, and more every minute. The aerial teams will sort them out, but we need to go smash the reinforcements."

For a moment Sara considered offering to wipe out the demons. She certainly had the power. But until she could modify her dark shield to provide complete immunity? She'd be cursed and immolated and killed. Though she, in her training, did learn _some_ things about demons on her own time. "There'd be control panels for the portals," she explained. "Smashing them wouldn't do it, but I can mind control a demon to overload them."

"So give you enough time to enslave one. How long should that take?"

Sara considered it. She'd only done the mind-wipe thrice so far, but there were some pointers in manipulation she'd taken from her past self that could make it easier. "A few seconds. The effect will be permanent too."

Darnall blinked at her. "Permanent?"

"Well, it won't go away on its own." She shrugged. "It'd take a lot for them to reverse it, but left to its own devices? Permanent."

The druid, still in his feline form, frowned. "When we get back, I expect a full write up pertaining to all your abilities, Miss Smithers."

"Fine. At any rate if I can get a gan'arg or mo'arg, I can use them to shut off the portals. Are there any, Sproz?" she asked, letting her Old God magic shiver along her upper arms.

They spent some more time outlining the specific formations of demons Sproz had seen while scouting. There were a lot of them, and there wouldn't be a lot of time once they were spotted to get in and get out. Luckily they did have hearthstones in case of emergency, but if they couldn't destroy the portals when the aerial squadron bombed them...

Eventually they decided on a specific route to go on, and with that done Jacob took the lead, smelling like freshly spilled blood. It sent an ecstatic shiver down her spine. They followed after him, and soon they arrived at the very edge of the mountainous forest, in sight of Forge Camp: Malice.

The demon encampment was situated in the middle of a valley. On the far side was another mountain range covered in somewhat-despoiled forestry. To the right there supposedly had once been 'Sludgeguard Tower' but now there was not even scrap to prove it had once existed. There was nothing except smooth, blackened stone. In the middle of the canyon was the Forge Camp.

It looked a lot like the one she'd seen in Dragonblight. The ground was dark and dead, and twisted metal structures clung to the land like boils. From so far, she could see the buzzing forms of hundreds of demons, and by reflex she checked to make sure her shadowy barrier was intact.

Further to the left, the Forge Camp extended and made a small arc around Dalaran crater. The crater itself was a gaping wound in the world, as if a Titan had come down with a scoop and dug out a vast section of the earth. Lavender arcane magic glowed dimly inside the crater, but even from so far away she could make out demon machines arranged over the crater like birds drinking water. They were absolutely enormous: no chance they could disable _those._

"Triangle formation," Darnall suggested. "Jacob and I in front. Uztun behind me, Sara behind Jacob, fan out a bit. Sproz, you're in the middle." They shuffled around until they were in position. The front of the triangle was 'blunt', being two people wide, and Jacob was on the right side so Sara was the right corner. The gnome priest settled in the middle of them to be protected. "Any soul stones?"

"No," Sara said. "But I can resurrect."

"It'll have to do. Get ready to charge and remember the plan. Three. Two. One. Go!" And they burst from the forest, running down the slope.

Sara had to thank Leira's conditioning now, because this was a run she could _handle_ now. They jogged across the grassy plain towards the Forge Camp, breathing heavily and preparing for the barrage of fel cannons. And they got halfway there before they had to do anything, too. Maybe the demons didn't see them until that point, or maybe the fel cannons didn't have the range. All the same, Sara saw flashes of acidic green light in the field of black and braced herself.

Jacob was the first to be hit, but he raised his runeblade into the fel-fireball's path and the sword soaked up the magic like a sponge.

Darnall jumped, twisting his feline body out of the way and letting the fireball set the ground ablaze with fire that smelled like rotten eggs.

Then a fireball hit _Sara._

The inferno blossomed against her shield and wrapped around it like a hug, but then washed away and left nothing but smoke.

 _Fwoom! Fwoom! Fwoom!_ More and more fel cannons blasted them, but they kept pushing forward until they reached the Forge Camp. That was when Sara got a good look at the demon army.

Imps, observers, voidwalkers, shivarra, void terrors, felhounds, and every kind of 'guard' she could think of. There was a very good mix, and the only thing that seemed to be missing were eredar, pit lords, and dread lords. And instantly they were upon them. Jacob shrouded himself in ice and raised his runeblade. From it, arcs of necrotic power struck the defiled land and ghouls raised themselves from the earth before besetting the demons. Darnall launched himself at a succubus and began mutilating her face. Uztun hefted his crossbow and launched bolts, and Sproz began frantically weaving spells to heal the wounds the others were sustaining at a massive pace.

Sara grinned. _It's time!_

Shadow magic burned bright green in her palms. Her bones ached with the force of the magic she channeled through her body, but the staff affixed to her back relieved the strain so she wouldn't injure herself. Then a calamitous shadow nova burst forth from her.

The Stormwind Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences taught a valuable tool for area of effect spells, the Friend-Foe Identification Addendum. It was a simple sequence that, when attached to the spell, let it discriminate in its targets. And its use was always, always encouraged. It was used in every arcane explosion, every holy nova, every seed of corruption, every rain of fire. And her every shadow nova. So when the choking flash of Old God power burst outwards from Sara, the dark energies bent around her four allies and smashed into the Legion without causing any friendly fire.

Demons naturally had high amounts of resistance to shadow magic, but no amount of tolerance would protect them from the wrath of an Old God. They fell back from the onslaught, and the weaker demons instantly blew away like dust. She thrust her hands into the air and let loose another explosion, battering down all the surrounding demons save the infernals. A third wave of shadow destroyed them as well.

"Holy shit!" Jacob shouted, pushing forward the moment the demons were cleared away. "Okay, move!" he shouted, pointing at the nearest portal.

The portals of the Burning Legion looked somewhat like hands sticking up from the ground, and the fingers cupped fel energy inside. The closest one was still quite distant though, and more demons were upon them.

 _Time to put it to the test,_ she thought, preparing the spell she'd been practicing on the hike.

The spell's premise was simple. Why bother driving the demons insane, when instead she could kill them? Kill them permanently.

Enormous amounts of death magic pooled in her left hand, and after three seconds of casting she thrust it out at an approaching felguard. The felguard's body, weapon and armor all at once burst into a purple mist and blew outwards. It left behind a shimmering green outline of the felguard, the representation of its demonic soul. Then the soul exploded into a million pieces, each of which scattered to the nether winds.

That demon was gone forever.

Bullets fired, claws tore, and swords swung. Sara kept casting her Soul Destruction spell over and over. Larger and more powerful demons, predictably, needed more magic to erase, but with her enchanted gear her mana pool was more than deep enough to handle it. Every single spell connected and, by its very design, it was always enough to instantly destroy the demon. They killed and killed and killed, and Sara was not so humble she wouldn't claim she killed more than the others combined.

Eventually, panting from lack of breath, they arrived next to the first portal just in time for Sara to erase an emerging shivarra. They backed up against its console, which Sara spared a glance at. It was a box of blackened metal, closed tight with no buttons, levers or _anything_ manipulable in sight.

"Smithers!" the death knight shouted. "Present for you!" From his outstretched hand a lasso of necrotic power lashed out and gripped a diminutive creature, before tugging it back to the human. He got out of the way of the incoming demon, letting it continue to fly and hit the portal _right next_ to Sara. "Do your thing!"

"On it!" she affirmed. She reformed her barrier and let loose another shadow nova to clear out the demons, making sure it left the demon alone, and approached it.

The gan'arg was a tiny little thing, no taller than a dwarf. Its scaly skin was the color of rain clouds, as were its clothes. A hood went over its head, concealing the eyes but letting her see a bulbous nose and two underbite teeth. Then she grabbed it, either hand on opposite sides of its hand, and began.

It struggled for a moment, but then went slack and dropped its wrench as her powers went to work. Vaguely, Sara heard her guildmates fending off the Burning Legion, hurting and getting hurt and healing. But that wasn't important. All that mattered to her was rearranging the lines in the gan'arg demon's brain, practically lobotomizing it in order to make it do the only thing she needed. And then...

"Done!" she shouted, releasing another shadow nova. Then she pointed at the demon. "You! Destroy all these portals, one at a time, using the most efficient means you have available to you!" He didn't nod or do anything to acknowledge her authority, but he _did_ walk to the console and, with a touch, opened its top to reveal a vast array of buttons and sensors.

Sara had other problems. She turned back to the fight... just in time to get a face full of carrion insects. The insects passed over her barrier and her allies, crackling with death energy. Once the swarm passed and Sproz once again continued her frantic healing, Sara caught sight of the source of the swarm.

It was a dreadlord, but... not a normal one. All along his breastplate, skin, and even his abnormally tattered wings there were bright purple lines burnt into them. His breastplate was dark purple, like her magic, and instead of claws on his hands and talons on his wings the demon had fangs that slowly dripped saliva. This was the dreadlord she had corrupted and killed in Nethergarde, and apparently he recognized her because his eyes went wide in horror.

"It's you," he breathed.

 _Yes it is,_ she thought, pooling a tremendous amount of magic into her soul destruction spell. It'd take a tremendous amount of power to instantly kill a dreadlord, but that was magic she could afford to spend. This corrupted dreadlord had to go. _Goodbye._

But just before she could finish casting her spell, he gestured with a hand and Sara was...

She was...

Overcome with exhaustion. She didn't fall, but her upper body slouched over and her magic _slurped_ back into her body. Her eyelids slammed shut and she swayed back and forth, her head buzzing with tiredness and -

Someone slapped her. She screamed and straightened up immediately, looking at the offender. He was blue and tall and a hunter, and it took a moment for her brain to connect the dots and realize it was Uztun. "What happened?" she mumbled, rubbing at an eye.

"That dreadlord put you to sleep. We killed him off, then I woke you up." He pointed up ahead, to where the gan'arg was already running to the next portal. "Come on, this one is deactivated," he said, before sprinting off the catch up with the others.

Sara joined him, sparing a glance at the teleporter. It seemed charred, and the fel light inside had extinguished. So that was one down, and two to go.

As it turned out, getting the other two portals destroyed was a relatively simple endeavor. They'd already killed most of the demons getting to the first one, and from there their various weapons and spells could easily keep the enemy at bay. The gan'arg raced ahead and sabotaged the next one. This time, Sara actually got to see the process in action. The demon pushed a few buttons, and then the blazing fel-light inside the portal's frame grew many times brighter... before fizzling out and leaving a burnt, inactive structure in its place. It must have been redirecting more of the magic to the one portal, causing it to overload. Maybe it also deactivated safety features. All that mattered was that the three portals were irrevocably damaged, and with that accomplished they _ran._

The fel cannons were easily corroded and smashed, and Sara erased any demon foolish enough to chase them, even an _eredar._ Of course, destroying his soul cost so much magic that Sara's mouth instantly dried. So she simply dug out a mana potion and chugged it.

And then, they were in the forest. And then, they were safe. Still, they kept running until Darnall was absolutely certain they weren't being followed anymore.

"Alright, halt," he said, shifting back into his night elf form. "Everyone take a rest." She, the draenei, and the gnome, all collapsed onto various rocks, breathing heavily. The _death knight_ of course had no problems with exhaustion, but Sara's head swam and little dots flickered in and out of her vision. That was probably the most running she had _ever_ done in her entire life. But she did it. She was alive, and she hadn't needed to resurrect anyone thanks to Sproz's powerful healing magic. The portals were shut down. And she had permanently killed dozens of demons.

"Holy shit," she breathed, one hand on her stomach as she took deep breaths. " _Holy shit_ I can't believe that worked!" Sara cracked a smile at Uztun. "We actually did it."

He grinned back at her, his chin tentacles shifting a bit as he did. "Indeed we did. This was your first mission yes? What do you think?"

What did she think? She thought this was amazing. The mortals had actually helped her get in there and... and she destroyed the portals. No more Legion reinforcements. Hundreds of them sent back to the nether and dozens wiped from existence by her powers over death. She hadn't died. And with the death knight there to look big and bad and intimidating, the most harm she had suffered was a sleeping spell. Anything that had tried to get close to her was blown away. They'd actually done it. They were shutting off the Legion's access into Azeroth. They were _winning._ How could she feel anything but ecstatic?! She said as much to him.

"I'm glad you're so pleased," Darnall interrupted. "However, we should begin moving once again. Southpoint Gate is quite a ways away."

Right, right. The return trip.

* * *

Three days there and probably four days back, now that they weren't in a hurry. Sara didn't hear the aerial teams bomb the Legion, but that was to be expected given the distance. The trip back was spent in high spirits and high altitudes, with Sara humming to herself gaily. The dirt and grime of roughing it in the woods couldn't matter less to her because she'd actually done well against the demons. She didn't even feel the urge to control and torture woodland animals, such was her joy.

They walked and walked, and eventually the third day came to an end with the sun setting and the twin moons rising. They set up camp and ate their meal. The other four made small talk with each other, but Sara turned in early, having no real desire to talk with the mortals.

That night, like all other nights since touching her old body, she dreamed of the days as an Old God. She dreamed of being chained beneath miles of dirt and unyielding stone, of sickening weakness and chains grasping her tentacles. When morning came she awoke with a start and took a few minutes to make sure she was above ground and could move her limbs.

Her good mood, however, had diminished somewhat on the last day. The hills sloped down, so Sara felt like she was constantly about to trip and fall and break her neck. She just wanted to get back to Ironforge and rest, maybe even use her hearthstone, but Darnall was insistent that they do this by the book, and that meant going to inform the guards and whatnot in Southpoint about their accomplishments. Oh well. She could handle one more day of light hiking.

They didn't speak much as they descended the mountains, back to the vaguely necrotic fields of Hillsbrand. It took the entire fourth day, but eventually the trees began to thin away. But as they grew closer something seemed wrong. Southpoint Gate had been decorated in dark colors, as was typical of the forsaken. Everything was kept relatively dim. So why, even in the twilight hours, was there so much light from up ahead?

Darnall seemed to share her concerns, because he held up a hand. "Hold up," he said, and they obeyed. "Stay low and quiet," he said as they crawled forward towards the sound of crackling wood, the smell of smoke, and a brilliant flourish of both green and red light. They approached and, still hidden in the growth, peeked at the scene.

Southpoint Gate was _demolished._ Infernal meteors rained down from the heavens as emerald streaks too fast to track with her eyes. Wherever they impacted, a shockwave of air pushed everything away, and then the boulders pulled themselves back together and the infernal went off to destroy everything in sight. The gate was smashed to pieces, the tents and wyvern roosts were reduced to burning planks, and there was absolutely no resistance. The dwarves, the humans, the forsaken, everyone had been smashed to a pulp or burnt to a crisp. And sure, Sara could resurrect them, but... there were so many infernals. The damage was already done.

All the same, she couldn't let these infernals survive. Sara started to move forward, but Darnall gripped her shoulder and held her back. "Don't," he whispered.

"You saw what I could do in the Forge Camp," she hissed at him. "Do you really think _they_ are going to give me difficulty?"

"Deployed infernals burn out on their own after enough time has elapsed," he said calmly, reminding her of what she already knew. "These infernals have already trashed everything of value here, they're already dead. We need to get back to Ironforge and warn the generals of what has transpired here."

She stared back at him. There were any number of arguments she could have made. She could resurrect the fallen and lessen the impact. She could work off her frustrations. She could make _certain_ they wouldn't do more damage elsewhere, such as cause a forest fire. She could let them go back with their hearthstones and stay behind to clean up. Hell, she could _kill these four_ and do it herself, then resurrect them later on if she felt like it. But... she was trying to make herself a better person. And she was already in enough hot water with the Alliance army. No need to dig herself deeper with some bullshit insubordination charges or something. Guilds tended to be lighter on discipline and obedience, but she didn't want to chance it. Her anger burning like acid in her gut, Sara relented.

"Alright."

"Glad to have you listening to reason." He turned to the other three. With one arm he dug into his pack, and with the other the night elf gestured at them. "Hearthstone back to Ironforge, go go go." The others were already fishing out their rocks, and a moment later Darnall joined them. They teleported away one by one, and as he began to rub the stone he looked at her. "Coming?"

"Hmmph." She pulled out her own and began to trace the blue spiral. The hearthstone thrummed to life, and nature magic began to swirl around it, plasma leaves appearing and disappearing. The sensation sent ripples of nausea through her, but she held on. Darnall vanished in a series of blue spheres, leaving Sara alone.

She considered dropping her hearthstone and going at the infernals, but she didn't. Besides, already wind was whistling in her ears and her body was weightless. The magic in the little palm-sized rock flared to life and grabbed her body. With a _yank_ she was tossed into the air. All of Azeroth spiraled away from her as she was tossed into the Great Dark Beyond. Azeroth spun a bit, and then she was falling, falling so much faster than she should have been able to, and then she crashed through layers of air and snow and rock and metal and landed in Ironforge with the wind knocked out of her.

So, that was it then. Her first mission had been a resounding success. With her aid, the Chimes of A'dal had smashed the Legion's portals and eradicated a large portion of their army. She had done everything exactly as she was supposed to with far greater success than had been expected. Sara had done everything right.

And still, they lost.


	26. Chapter 25: Deal with the Devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

When she returned to Ironforge, Sara first went back to the armory and stored her borrowed gear. Then she spent some time talking with the guild leader alongside the others about what had transpired on her expedition. Then she left to find Leira; she still had the glyph and it felt like it was burning up her pocket. So before she went back to her room, before she did anything else, she was going to _find_ the damn draenei and graft the piece of paper onto her soul.

In the week or so that she'd spent as part of the Chimes of A'dal, she had completely memorized the layout of the guild hall. She searched high and low, greeting the occasional passerby, but Leira was nowhere to be found. Not training, not in her room, nothing. Either she was out running, or she wasn't back from her expedition yet.

"Guess I'll just have to wait," Sara muttered to herself.

The memory of Southpoint Gate, crushed and immolated, was still prominent in her mind. It wasn't hard to guess what had happened. While they had been out on mission to smash the portals, the Legion launched their infernals. Maybe even _after_ they did their work. After all, they'd been destroying portals instead of infernal meteors. And if the air bombardment had somehow failed...

"Damn it," she whispered, walking around the Military Ward. She made her way over to a mailbox and opened its flap, checking inside. She rifled through a few letters addressed to others before finding one actually addressed to her. A small part of her couldn't help but think _'About time'_ but she knew that wasn't fair. Even magical mail could take time to arrive.

With her letter in hand, she walked back into the guild hall and locked herself in her tiny little room. Sara sat by the desk, pulling out sheets of paper and a pencil, but before she went to work she opened the letter with a slice of her magic and read it.

_Sara,_

_We are overjoyed to hear this news. We knew you were stationed in Nethergarde, and when we heard that it fell we had feared the worst. But the important thing is that you are alright. As for your father and I, we are both safe so you need not worry. The demons are getting along to Duskwood now, so we've been evacuated to Stormwind and from there, we're going to Darnassus with the night elves. Do not worry about us; we fully intend to stay well ahead of the Burning Legion. Meanwhile you stay safe yourself, you hear? Do not misunderstand, we are both proud of you for taking a stand the way you are, but do make sure you come home safe and sound. I don't think your father could handle hearing the news a second time._

_While I dearly wish we could come visit you and hug you and give you those little abominable yeti cookies you love so much -_

"I was five years old," she muttered to herself as blood rushed to her head. Still, that _did_ disprove the unlikely situation of the military fabricating a letter.

_\- and see for myself you really are alive, I suppose this letter will have to do given the circumstances. Still, earliest opportunity you are to come meet us right away, you hear? Your father and I are eager to see you._

_Sincerely,_

_Mom_

_P.S. Don't listen to your mother, Sara. We all know it was the Greatfather Winter candy you liked._

"Dad!" she hissed. A moment later though, she smiled and clutched the letter to herself, something warm blossoming in her chest. Her parents were okay. They knew she was okay. They were in Darnassus. They'd get through this and she'd see them again, and she could forget all about being Yogg-Saron reborn. Everything was going to be fine once they beat back the Legion.

Speaking of which...

Their efforts weren't working. They were going out and striking the demons, but they were striking back harder. She didn't know what the situation was like in Kalimdor or Northrend, but in the Eastern Kingdoms they were losing ground and _fast._ Silvermoon and Gilneas were gone. Undercity was stranded far behind enemy lines and as good as gone. Nethergarde was swallowed and it'd only be a matter of time before the demons were knocking on Stormwind's doorstep. Ironforge and Gnomeregan were going to be sandwiched and there was _nothing she could do!_

She'd dispensed with the idea of transforming back into a proper Old God a while ago, it was too risky. But barring that, Sara couldn't hope to stop the invasion all on her own. There was just too many of them in too many places she couldn't get to.

But she could do more.

She _had_ to do more.

It was time to start _really_ ramping up the Old God-ness of what she was doing, to _really_ enjoy her power and take pride in her heritage. And she was going to start by giving herself some of her own glyphs. Nothing major, just some minor glyphs to make things easier. Luckily, she still had her pot of Old God blood.

Sara worked. And she worked and she worked and she worked, occasionally stopping to get food and such necessities. She burned away the time and her candles whittled themselves to nubs. But in that time, she'd devised some simple glyphs for her own use, with the blood of her past self used for ink. Sara grabbed the first one and brought it to her chest, then sent a _shock_ of magic into it and began grafting it onto her magic. Sara closed her eyes and hummed to herself, her left index finger tracing the eldritch symbols she had made on the parchment. There was nothing, there was nothing...

_Zap!_

Then it was done. The sensation of electricity coursing through her veins faded a moment later. The paper was gone. Sara let out a breath and felt her stomach. She felt _warm,_ oddly enough. Secure. Like something had just been made right. She repeated the process with the other two glyphs, and then tried to test out the first.

First, she summoned her shadow magic. Orbs of darkness swirled around both her hands, which she moved in a figure-eight. The first of the glyphs was simply something to contain her magic, to make it more cohesive. And sure enough, it worked. Her magic left behind none of the shadowy fog that it had for years past. Not a very useful glyph sure, but it wouldn't do for demons - _or some other foe of hers_ \- to track her with the miasma she left behind.

Next, Sara wove her magic into a barrier around herself. Like always a green sphere formed around her... but this time, it was rather easy for her to see through it. The shifting, pearlescent colors were, thanks to her second glyph, invisible on the inside and would do nothing to cloud her vision.

To test the final glyph, Sara simply stuck her hand into the pot of liquid saronite.

Like it always did, the saronite was warm and almost gooey. It wrapped around her hand, pulsed to the tune of her heartbeat and soothed the stress in her head. But this time, there was something... more. It felt like the saronite was connecting with something in her. Resonating with it. It wasn't much, but Sara's breaths came just a little easier, her mana pool was just a little deeper... yes, that would do.

She pulled her hand out of the saronite and nodded. Now she just needed some saronite gear to wear. It wasn't like it could corrupt _her_ after all.

Sitting back down, she pulled out some sheets of paper and began scrawling all over them with spells and formulae. Keeping it all in her head and trying to memorize it would get her nowhere. She was going to write down Yogg-Saron's spells and study them from there. After all, making some minor glyphs specifically tailored to her was simple. But if she wanted to do something major, if she wanted to wield the sort of prowess Yogg-Saron did in its battle against the Kingslayers, she was going to have to try harder.

Time ticked past and Sara hardly left her room. Her writing instrument scritched and scratched. Charts. Diagrams. Spell lines and circles filled her vision, and exhaustion tugged at her eyelids but who cared? Her first mission had, despite it all, ended in colossal failure. That couldn't happen again. Everyone, including herself, needed to do their part. She could -

_Knock knock knock!_

Sara considered shooing whoever it was away, but it might be Leira and she could finally give the warrior her glyph. "It's open!" she called.

The door creaked open and let the light from the torches outside pour in. The light streamed around a shadow and Sara turned to face the figure. Then she froze.

"Hey there cutie, mind if we talk?" asked a _succubus,_ striding in and kicking the door closed with a hoof. She shifted her weight onto one leg, showing off her half-naked body. "Relax, I'm not here to do anything like seduce or torture or anything." Suddenly her expression went grim. "Not that I'd mind the latter," she growled. Then she beamed again. "I'm here on behalf of my superior. He wants to extend an offer to you, honey."

Sara blinked. There was a succubus. Inside the Military Ward. How? Had she used invisibility? Probably. Should she warn the rest of the guild? Yes, she should! A demoness had gotten inside here! Who knew where else she could have gone! Where else she _had already_ gone!

Then the succubus's words registered. It wanted to make her a deal.

Instantly, she extended her left hand at the succubus. "Not interested!" Her magic roiled and burst forth in a colossal emerald blast. The succubus's glowing eyes went wide with horror, and then the death blast swallowed her whole. When it faded, she had already returned to the nether.

Sara reclined in her seat, balled her hands into fists, and rubbed her eyes with them. "I am not paid nearly enough for this," she muttered, regretting the fact that she hadn't taken the time to _permanently_ kill the succubus. Then she left to go raise the alarm.

* * *

It wasn't hard to convince some of the older members of the guild of what had just happened. Her magic blast had been _loud._ So it hadn't taken long, and much to her relief she had actually met up with Leira in the process. She'd recently come back from her mission in the Arathi Highlands, and had already stored away her gear and been debriefed. At the moment, she and the taller woman were walking back to their rooms.

"So before I forget," Sara said. "I invented a new glyph that I want to give you."

"Sara, I already have all my glyphs in place," she said, amused.

"No, I mean I invented an entirely new glyph. Using my _you know what_ powers," she hinted, nudging the draenei in her side.

Leira stiffened. "Oh. _Oh._ Is it any good? Like, what's it do? Am I gonna grow any tentacles if I use it? I mean no offense!" she said suddenly, holding up her hands with a wry smile on her face. "I'm certain having extra limbs is nothing but an advantage, but I'd prefer to keep what I know."

"No tentacles," she assured. "All it does is sort of toughen you up the angrier you are. Physical resistance, spell resistance, all that stuff."

As they turned towards Sara's room, Leira tapped her chin. "Hmm, that _does_ sound useful. Some extra life insurance is always handy. Oh, we're here."

"Huh?" she asked, before paying attention to how far they'd gone. Sure enough, they'd arrived. "Right." She opened the door and walked in, with Leira following her. Sara strode to her table and grabbed the glyph, showing it to Leira.

"Eugh, that's it huh?" she asked, placing a hand over her forehead as if the glyph were some painfully bright lamp. "You're _sure_ there'll be no tentacles or anything? I hear Old God magic has a mind of its own."

"Sort of. It's not really sapient, but its will is that of the Old God that commands it. So if a mortal were to use C'Thun's magic, then C'Thun can tell its magic to corrupt the mortal from the inside. But it's _my_ magic, I'm the one telling it what to do, so you'll be fine. Trust me, Leira," she pleaded.

She nodded. "Alright alright, you're the expert. I have a glyph of Bull Rush, I think that'd be good to replace."

Sara activated her magic, taking note of how Leira shivered whenever she did. "Bull Rush glyph, got it." Her powers pushed into Leira, and the draenei dry-heaved. It must have felt like what nature magic did to Sara, so she resolved not to linger. She searched, and in a moment she found her glyphs, arranged in a wheel with six spokes around her stomach. She reached over each one and rubbed her magic along it to see what it was, and on the fourth try she found a signature that matched a Bull Rush glyph. With a few snips of magic, she gutted the glyph and it vanished. Then she placed her new glyph against Leira's shirt and began to activate it.

Nothing.

Nothing.

_Zap!_

Leira doubled over and retched, so Sara ran over to support her. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she wheezed. After a moment Leira straightened up. "Ugh, thanks for the help." The draenei shivered. "Yeesh, that stuff feels _awful._ "

Sara sat down in her chair and rubbed the back of her head nervously. "Heh, I guess it would. You'll have to let me know how effective it is later. Well, I have to get back to work," she explained, picking up a quill. "See you around."

"Wait, have you been in here the entire time since you got back?" Leira asked, looking around the dimly lit, sparsely decorated room.

"Given how poorly _my_ mission went? I need to do better next time," she mumbled, already busying herself with mapping out the formulae of the brain link spell.

"Right, I heard about that. Southpoint Gate right?" Leira clip-clopped her way over to Sara's bed and sat on it. "Oh by the Light, you're beating yourself up over _that?_ Sara listen, there was nothing you could do."

"That's the problem!" she shouted, slamming her hands on the table. "There are so many spells floating around in my head that _could have_ done something about it and I don't know how to cast a single one of them!"

"Hey hey, relax. I get it alright? But you can't just sit in here and work yourself to death."

"I'll resurrect myself," she said blandly.

Her friend smirked, but then stopped. "Wait. Is that, like, a thing you can do?"

She kept her eyes on her work. "I dunno, never tried it. Yogg-Saron could revive itself, at its full power. Takes a _lot_ of magic to do that though, far more than just resurrecting someone else. Probably don't have enough."

Leira shook her head, her black hair flying. "That's not the point." She came over and forcefully turned her sheets of paper face down. "So our missions didn't go _entirely_ as planned. Sara, you could stand to take a break. With that in mind... " She trailed off, and her glowing eyes seemed to narrow in wicked glee. "... me and some friends are going to Stonefire Tavern for some chatter. Wanna come with? Getting out will do you some good."

Sara paused. On the one hand she'd be going to an inn to socialize with others, _and_ put off working to improve herself. Definitely not a good scenario. On the other hand, she _was_ trying to curb her Old-God tendencies and maybe going out to this inn would help with that. Besides, it was a new experience and she didn't know what to expect. It might as well be _random_ and wasn't that enticing? "Fine." _But I won't like it,_ she refrained from saying. "Let me just get dressed and I'll meet you there. The Commons, right?"

"I'll hold you to it," Leira mock-threatened, walking over to the door. "See you soon!" she sang. The draenei left and closed the door behind her.

Sara sighed. Part of her was _really_ tempted to just stay here and work on her magic, but no. She was going, even if she had to drag herself there.

The stipend she got was enough to let her afford a change of clothes, rather than just constantly washing the ones she'd brought with her when she escaped to Dalaran. The small room had enough space to let her fit in a wardrobe, which she flung open and began deliberating what to wear. And by deliberating, she meant closing her eyes and picking at random because who _knew_ what she'd end up with?

In the end Sara found herself in a pale red blouse and a grass-green short skirt. She wore her hair down, like always, and wore some regular, brown leather shoes on her feet. After a moment's consideration, she tucked away a small pouch of gold and a waterskin into her bags and slung it over her back. With that done, she rubbed her eyes one last time and stepped out of her room.

Leaving the guild hall only took her a moment, and then she was walking through the Military Ward to the Commons.

She'd started to get used to the idea of being underground, even if looking at the vaunting ceiling _did_ make her feel queasy. The Commons didn't do much to alleviate the feeling, even with the occasional gryphon flying in from above and twisting through the tunnels to deliver its passenger. Hordes of people crowded around each other, pushing and shoving in deliciously inscrutable patterns. The majority of the crowd was clustered around either the bank or the auction house, hoping to snag a good deal. In the middle of the Commons was a series of rectangular gaps in the ground, which went all the way to the molten rock flowing beneath Ironforge. Above it, however, was a metal mesh and in recent times, due to safety concerns, a second mesh had been added near the top to prevent people from falling down. Of course both could still be retracted to create trenches in case of invaders.

Sara stopped by one of those trenches and stared down into it. Magma stared back, churning slowly and angrily, and Sara wanted _so badly_ to reach out and give it a way to _vent_ that anger, to tell the liquid stone to rise through the mesh and do what it wished while she sat back and watched with a smile, watch it eat stone like melting ice. Then she shook her head and moved on. "Gotta stop that," she whispered to herself.

Stonefire Tavern was on the far end of the Commons, on the 'outer edge' of the wheel. She had to go past the auctioneer and the gates, which forced her to deal with being pushed and shoved. She gave as good as she got but still. Couldn't they watch where they were going?

She pushed her way into the inn. Sara hadn't been in a dwarven inn before, and while it was just as toasty warm as it was outside, the sudden switch from yellow, gnomish electric light to erratic orange torches was jarring. The din of thousands of people going about their business was replaced with lively chatter between patrons, along with the sharp stench of beer and mead. Square shaped tables were set out with four chairs at each. There were fully occupied tables that had stolen chairs from others to seat more than four, empty tables, and everything in between. Half a second after she walked in there was a burst of boisterous laughter from the far back corner.

Sara scanned the tavern with her eyes for a moment before she spotted Leira sitting at a table to the right with two others, a dwarven woman and night elf man. The former had fiery red hair in a bun, and the latter had hair the color of grass that went down to the small of his back.

Leira spotted her as she was walking over and waved her over to the one remaining seat. "Glad you could make it," she said with a wink. "Anra and Hammon just got here too."

"Glad to be here," she lied, sitting and throwing her bag under her chair. "Never met you two."

"Never met ya either," the dwarf said. "Saw you at the meeting though. How'd yer mission go?"

Sara hid a wince. "Poorly. We smashed the portals like we were supposed to, but by the time we got back to Southpoint Gate it'd been destroyed by infernals."

Anra frowned. "So not that well huh? Welcome to the club. Hammon and I were in Silverpine Forest. Tried to assassinate a dreadlord, even had some of these 'Apexis Crystals' to make sure he couldn't come back. Couldn't get close to him though! Slippery devil got away through a gateway and we barely escaped with our lives."

"Yeah," Leira said. "Mine didn't go so well either." Suddenly she looked behind Sara. Twisting around, she saw the barmaid had come to their table. "I'll have a flask of Stormwind Tawny to start and two turkey legs," Leira ordered, holding up two fingers.

"Moonberry Juice, caribou, and a Lagrave Stout," the night elf requested.

Anra slammed a fist on the table, startling everyone except Sara and the barmaid. "Five strips of jerky, a bowl of mutton stew, and let's go with three Foote Triples!" she demanded.

Sara blinked, but gave the menu on the wall a quick glance. After a moment she shrugged. "I'll just have a bowl of mutton stew," she said in a 'friendly' voice.

"Alrighty then," the barmaid said with a wink. "I'll get that for ya right away."

As she walked away, the rest of them focused back on Leira. "So as I was saying, my mission in Arathi didn't work out as I hoped. Legion had gotten to some of the elemental rings and was corrupting them and such, so obviously we were to go there and stop that. Went to the water ring, brought with us some shaman and all sorts of jugs of pure, clean water. We get there, and fucking _eredar_ teleport in the fuck out of nowhere. And while we're fighting, they take our water and make it all demonic, then splash that into the ring. After that we had to call it quits. Got this from them too," she said, lifting her shirt to expose a wide, rectangular patch of skin that was lighter blue than the skin around it.

They winced in sympathy at the sight of the healed burn, and Leira put her shirt back down. "Yeah, not good. Pretty sure Calven will be sending us out on another mission soon enough."

"After the Arathi Highlands they get to the Wetlands, right?" Sara asked. "But they have to go across the bridge to get there."

"That they do," Hammon said. "I think Menethil Harbor is going to bomb it to pieces," he said in a whisper. She supposed it was sensitive, classified information but _honestly_ who was going to hear them? The tavern was loud enough as it was. "Then they can stage a defense at the choke point and buy us some time to go put the hurt on them."

They talked idly about their various missions until the barmaid returned with a platter filled with food precariously balanced on both arms. She set it down on the middle of the table. "Alright, there we go. Stormwind Tawny and two turk' legs for you, moonberry juice, caribou and a Lagrave Stout for you, mutton stew for you," she said with a gesture to Sara. "And three Foote Triples, five strips of jerky, and another mutton stew for you. Ha, enjoy!" she said before turning away.

Sara spooned up a bit of her stew and ate it. "There was a fel reaver at the Forge Camp I went to. Anything like that with you three?"

"Not with me," Leira said. "A lot of machines, but no reavers."

"We actually did see a few," Anra said. "Big mean ol' things. Weren't active though, but I'm guessin' they will be soon, eh?"

"So the invasion has gotten to that point," Hammon mused. "We'll have to deal with the Legion's technological side."

"Well good luck to them," Leira said, taking a swig of her flask. "Fel reavers can't get over a broken bridge."

They continued talking a little about the invasion as the others slowly made themselves drunk. Sara stuck with her seasoned stew, occasionally washing it down with some water from her bags. She didn't drink, after all. Their cheeks reddened - or in Leira's case, turned dark blue - though Anra didn't seem affected at all.

"... I'm just hopin' that, you know. I get into a fight soon," Leira said. "Got a new glyph today and I really want to test it out soon." She hiccuped a little, then bit another strip off her second turkey leg.

"Really las?" Anra asked, finishing off her fourth foamy jug. "What kinda glyph?"

"I dunno. Sara, what were you calling it?"

Two pairs of eyes locked on her, and she blanked. "Uh, I wasn't calling it anything. I guess... call it whatever you want?"

Leira nodded. "Right, right."

"What precisely do you mean ya don't know?" Anra asked. "Thought all them glyphs had names to them already."

_Well, distributing more of them is one way to help the war effort,_ she thought. "I invented a new one. It feeds off emotions, makes her tougher the angrier she gets." She considered it. "If you want, I could invent new ones for you two, if you give me an idea of what you want."

Hammon was drunk to the point of near unconsciousness, so he didn't respond. On the other hand, Anra acted as though she was still entirely sober. "Sure, I'll think of it. Usually I'm big in the assassination thing, and Hammon's one of them priests of the Cult of Forgotten Shadows." A shadow priest? Now that was something she'd like to see.

"I'll see what I can do," she promised.

"So, so." Leira turned to Anra. "It's half past 'I'm done with my food'," she said, finishing off the last of it. "I think it's about time we head back or something. Got to do stuff tomorrow, you know?"

Anra nodded. "Right. I'll help Hammon back. Sara, you mind helping Leira?"

"Sure," she said.

They paid for their meal and Anra was the first out. Watching the tiny dwarf practically carry the nearly comatose elf was comical enough, and then Sara found herself in the position of grabbing Leira's wrist and tugging her through the Commons.

"You are not going to have fun tomorrow," she mused. "This is why I don't drink, you know."

Leira scoffed. "Sara, seriously." She stumbled a moment. "Old God magic aside, you are the most _boring_ person I've ever met." Sara's heart momentarily stopped, but looking around revealed that nobody had noticed what Leira said about her magic. "You don't drink, until you came here you barely exercised, you pretty much just stay in your room all day and... what? Hell you don't even date."

"That's because I hate everyone, Leira."

"Excuses excuses. Hey, I'm thinking of going with Hammon and - "

" - aaand this conversation's over," she said sharply. "Is the new glyph settling alright?"

"Hmm? Yeah, if you hadn't told me what it's made of I'd have barely noticed. Gonna punch Huan tomorrow, get into a fight with him and test it out."

"I'll be sure to revive you in that case," she said with a cheeky grin. By then they'd arrived back in the Military Ward.

"Pfft, yeah right. You saw me beat the shit out of that obsidian destroyer. I'll whoop his ass with this new glyph you gave me. I mean, like, it's Old God magic. That's seriously strong stuff if you're not gonna cause any drawbacks."

"No, I'm not," she explained. Sara brought the drunken draenei into the guild hall and helped her towards her room. She even gave Leira what was left of her water skin for when the hangover struck her, and then retired to her own room.

Over all, the tavern outing hadn't been nearly as unbearable as she'd thought. She'd been able to squeeze Anra and Hammon for some valuable information after all, and they gave her targets to make glyphs for. Of course, she also needed to start thinking of enchantments as well, but it was a start.

* * *

Time passed.

Sara didn't go on any mission despite there being several calls to battle. Leira was not exactly a _senior_ member but she'd been in the guild for twelve years so she went out. Sara's trial period had only just ended, rendering her a fully fledged member of the guild, but still a new one. All things considered it was better for her to stay in Ironforge, honing her skills and bestowing gifts upon her 'allies'.

Old God blessings were known for the enormous power they granted, but the power always came at a price. The price of your soul, the price of your sanity, the price of your allegiance, the list went on. The price was always steep so only the really far gone, like the Twilight's Hammer, ever even considered Old God power. But Sara wasn't a mortal asking an Old God for power, she _was_ the one they asked and damn proud of it. So in her past life - _and maybe her current one_ \- she'd have asked for lots in return, but this was to stop the Legion from destroying _her world._ At least for the time being she could give out her glyphs and enchantments without asking for people's souls in return. After all, they had the Old God of Death mostly on their side, she was going to make sure they got their money's worth.

She kept exercising. Sometimes she got into friendly duels, and more often than not she blew her opponents away with her colossal power. Once or twice though, she ended up silenced, counterspelled, or just generally outmaneuvered and defeated. She practiced Yogg-Saron's spells and dreamed of long-gone days as an Old God, where she'd wake up feeling compressed and stiff, wishing to stretch tentacles she didn't have up to the sky.

The day started like any other. She got up, ate breakfast, and went over the most recent spell she was practicing, the brain link. She made a few glyphs for paladins and warlocks and gave them out to those that had requested them, then gave a soul-eating enchantment for a rogue to ensure any demons he killed _stayed_ dead. Then she went for her daily jog around Ironforge.

She went north first, going through Tinker Town. She had to be careful to make sure she didn't trample anyone, because what a _shame_ that would be. After that it was the wide and shining Hall of Explorers, and then into the refreshingly dark but achingly small Forlorn Cavern. But then she got to the Mystic Ward, where Ironforge's Light-wielders and spellcasters tended to gather, and she had to come to a stop.

Normally, Ironforge was very racially diverse. Dwarves and gnomes were, of course, a majority, but there were plenty of humans, worgen, night elves, draenei, and pandaren. But the absolute last thing she expected to see was hordes - no pun intended - of blood elves and forsaken in the Mystic Ward, pouring out of the portal room and making rings around the pool of water in the middle of the room. She paused her jogging and, panting lightly, approached the nearest guard. The guard in question, even under his helmet, was eyeing the Horde members warily.

"Sir, do you know why, um, _they're_ here?" she asked as respectfully as she could bear.

"Yeah, I do," he explained. "So after Silvermoon fell most of the blood elves evacuated to Kalimdor places, but a fair amount also went to the Undercity cause it's, you know, close. Just recently Undercity's been captured, so now a good number are here as refugees. That Sylvanas lady is speakin' with the Council right now actually, dunno why. We should just shunt them through the portals to Orgrimmar. They're with theirs, not with ours, everyone's happy. Least nobody's givin' 'em trouble."

"So the blood elf and forsaken army is in Ironforge?" she deadpanned.

"Oh no, not the armies. These are the civilians."

Hmm. Sara had an idea. She could even knock out her 'good deed of the day' that she so detested forcing herself to do. She reached into her memories and started organizing the spell. Over long minutes she pieced together the spell, and when she was sure she had a good framework to work on, she strode confidentially towards the sin'dorei and undead.

Sara had learned Orcish in school. She hadn't forgotten any of it despite her lack of use, but she also hadn't learned much to begin with. The Horde members near her were starting to take note of her. The forsaken were all in regular clothes and despite the rot and exposed bones looked as scared as any human would be in the reverse scenario. With the blood elves, it was much easier to see the worry. There were even some kids huddled around their caretakers' knees. Some played with toys, some talked in rapid-fire Thalassian. But as she grew closer, the chatter of Orcish, Thalassian, and Gutterspeak died down.

She picked out the closest one, a blood elf man about a head taller than her with spiked blonde hair and freakishly long ears even for his kind. "Hello," she said in Orcish, trying to remember how it went. "I can magic," she forced out. "Speak bad, but magic good. Can teach Common with magic my," she explained.

There was some shuffling, and then a forsaken woman pushed her way to the front of the crowd. Like all of them, her eyes were a blank sulfurous glow, but aside from the ashen skin and exposed bones along her elbows, she could have passed for a living person in hideously contrasting blue and orange. "I can speak Common," she said in a painfully scratchy voice. "From the looks of it, better than your Orcish."

Sara relaxed. "Oh good, that makes this easier. I can cast a spell that will teach Common permanently. It's not water or shelter, but it'll reduce the need for you to go back and forth as translator." She wiggled her fingers, letting dark purple magic drip from them for emphasis.

The undead smiled, briefly showing off rotten yellow teeth. Sara didn't flinch. "That would be very useful indeed." She turned back to the gathering crowd and spoke in Orcish _far_ too fast for Sara to understand, then turned back. The blood elf Sara'd first approached raised his hand. "Alright, we have your first volunteer. Do your best, human."

Grinning wryly, she approached the man and extended her magic into his head. Like always, a dense forest of interlinking purple lines, with bright magenta pulses flashing along them almost too fast for her eyes to track, and she got to work.

A few months ago, something like imparting the knowledge of an entire language into someone's long term memory would have been beyond her. But she was getting better at this. It took a few minutes to get past the personal variances and then a few minutes longer to truly cement the knowledge in, but then she stepped back and turned off her magic.

"Alright, does this work?"

The man felt his head, then blinked hard. "I... yes," he said with a heavy accent. "This is remarkable. You actually did it." He broke into a grin and gave a short bow. "Thank you, miss."

"Yeah yeah. Alright, who's next?"

Sara worked. And she worked and she worked, casting the spell over and over again. Her mind buzzed as she worked through the slight differences in each person's mind. She got faster, and she got more efficient in terms of mana, but something she hadn't accounted for soon came into play. There were just _so many people._ The crowds around her didn't seem to diminish even after an hour. People in the Mystic Ward apparently heard of her efforts and came to her with mana potions and water, and her own mana pool was very deep, but there were just _so many people._ Thousands of them. Each with different mind links. About half and half were undead; not many blood elves had gone to Undercity, but not many forsaken were civilians either.

First she developed a tickle in her throat that grew to full-blown thirst before long. Then her head swam and her knees shook, forcing her to do the casting while sitting down with her target. Then she got hungrier, she got dizzier, with an increasing burst of spots flickering in her vision whenever she cast, and Sara had to call it quits after having only helped a few hundred people. She rested a bit, and helped a dozen more after she could, but then she simply had to give up and leave the rest of them disappointed.

_Well, that's my good deed for the day,_ she thought. Sara finished up her jog and went about the rest of her day in the sort of agonizing repetitiveness she'd come to tolerate. Noon came, and with it lunch. Then she worked on the mind malady spell. Then came dinner, and she stayed up long into the night working on making another soul-eater enchantment.

_Scritch, scratch_ went her pencil.

Abyss crystals, spirit dust, and sha crystals flowed together, forming the soul-eater enchantment. After a little more preparation, it was ready to be added to a weapon.

_Knock knock knock!_

"Oh now what?!" she muttered, standing from her desk and sliding to the door. She opened it and...

Another succubus. Probably the same one too, but her choker glowed purple this time.

"Not this again," she growled, preparing her soul destruction spell. How had she even gotten through the invisibility wards?!

Then the demon sucked in a panicked breath and, closing the door with her tail, tackled Sara.

Of all the possible things the demon could have done, that was absolutely the last thing she'd expected. Sara went down on the ground, and her magic flickered out. The demon was laid against her, scrambling for purchase, but before she could slice her throat or anything similar Sara cast her shadowy barrier. It wasn't total immunity _yet_ but it did protect her from non-projectile spells like seduction magic.

She rose to her feet and turned her head to the succubus, who was still on the ground, pushed into a corner. The position bent her bat wings at an odd angle, and she looked at Sara breathlessly. "Wait wait, just hear me out!" she pleaded.

"Oh I think I will," she intoned ominously. Her magic glowed bright purple and she forced it into the succubus's mind...

... nothing happened.

She tried to start mind controlling the demon again. Nothing happened, and Sara stared at her glowing hand in confusion.

Meanwhile, the succubus fingered the band around her throat in shock. "Wow, I can't believe that worked," she whispered.

"Oh, so you've got mind control protection." If that was the case, then not only was this the same succubus she'd killed a while ago, but it was also the same one she had mind controlled in Nethergarde. _This_ was interesting, and the demon was scared to death and powerless to stop her, so what was the harm? "Alright, spit it out." The demon made to rise but Sara held her right hand at her along with a pulse of death magic. "Stay there."

"Alright gorgeous, fine. So I'm guessing you remember me huh?" She growled. "I certainly remember _you_ back in Nethergarde. Shame you slipped out when we smashed the keep, but that's beside the point. My lord retrieved me and had a dreadlord fix me. It took a _long_ time sweetie, but I'm right as rain now. But what my lord found very interesting is that you." She pointed a clawed finger at Sara. "You used Old God magic." Her eyes widened, and she instantly started casting the soul destruction spell, causing the green light of her magic and the pain of over channeling to flare up. "Wait wait wait!" the succubus begged.

A demon, _begging._ That was good and right. Sara relaxed. "Go on."

"Okay listen. You're in this guild. You've been fighting us, so you know how well it's going. Your Kingslayers are useless. Your dragons are occupied. And this little continent? Oh ho, things are going swimmingly for us. Lady, you've got to have figured it out, right?" Sara frowned. "Oh yes, I see that look on your face, hot stuff. You _know_ we're going to win."

"You haven't before," she said, but Sara couldn't force confidence in her voice despite the fact that swirling violet magic still held the succubus against the ground. "Every Legion invasion before has gone poorly at first before we won."

"Oh darling, you know as well as I do how flawed that is. I mean, it's like saying 'nothing has killed you yet, so therefor you're immortal'. We only need to win once, you know. And when we do, _you're gonna die,_ darling. No skin off my back, but my commanding lord thinks you can do better than an early, painful grave. And hey, even if we _don't_ somehow win, then you're only mortal right? Sooner or later you're gonna die anyway no matter how much magic you beg the Old Gods for."

So they knew about her magic, but they were dead wrong about its origin. Not that she could blame them, how could they possibly know? _She_ certainly hadn't suspected. "Get to the point," she snarled.

"Okay look. Whatever you wanted to get from Old God magic, we can give you more. Like, those old creeps are done for! Titans came by and roasted them, and if they haven't taken back Azeroth in sixty thousand years, pfft! What makes you think they _ever_ will? So, my lord has a good offer for you. Like, come join us and all. Sure sure, Azeroth's been a real stumbling block for us, but we've got it figured out now. We've learned from our past mistakes, we can leverage our strengths and cover our weaknesses. After that we'll just do what we've always done: move on to the next world. And the next, and the next. And you could be part of that!"

"Really now?" she said calmly.

The demon nodded. "Oh you better believe it," she said flirtatiously. "You could _really_ put that power of yours to the test. You could use it to turn mortals inside out and make them scream in agony, or mind control them and make them do whatever the hell you want! Oh, or raze villages to the ground, or mind-magic your way into a city and _slice_ their leaders. That's always a favorite of _mine,_ you know."

Sara blinked hard, trying to pretend she hadn't liked what she'd just heard. In the back of her mind she thought about the images of the Old Gods' rule. Of rivers of blood drying up under the heat of volcanoes. Screams, torture, all sorts of horrible things that could be done that sent a tingle down her spine and butterflies into her stomach.

"And it wouldn't be just like a sixty year deal or something. You could do it with us _forever_."

She was immortal anyway but... that really put it into perspective didn't it? A hundred years. A million. A billion. Ravaging and pillaging worlds, growing stronger and stronger until she matched her past life's power, on and on as much as she wanted. Sara began swaying from side to side, but caught herself. "My friend," she protested. _I should have just killed this succubus again,_ she thought. "My family."

The demon flicked a wrist and rolled her eyes. "Pfft, you've got Old God magic and you're worried about _that?_ " Sara's magic pulsed. "Okay okay! Easy there. I'm sure you could make a deal with my lord. Your allegiance to the Legion in exchange for the lives of your friends and family. Find a little unintelligent garden world out of the way for them to live on, give you visiting rights and everything to make sure we've kept our end of the bargain." Sara's gut clenched. Suddenly she was so tired and compressed. She wanted to let loose her magic and let it flow like a river, return to Ulduar and remake this world in her image as it should have been. And with the Legion's resources it'd be so easy. Her body ached and tingled. Damn it, she wanted it _so badly._

"And in return you get everything! Power, prestige, the popularity of being the _only_ wielder of Old God magic in the entire millions-strong Burning Legion. You could even have some _fun_ with my kind, you know. Or the incubi we keep locked up on our home world if that's your thing. All _you_ need to do is - "

Sara shook herself out of it. Forget it. Forget it! Even if she did want any of that she wasn't about to trust demons to do it. They could fabricate some trick to make her think her family was alive. "Forget it. Not interested." Her magic grew brighter and brighter, and the succubus gulped. But before Sara could erase her soul, the demoness actually brought her hands above her forehead, winced, and drove her claws deep. She collapsed limply and both her body and blood blew away as demonic mist moments before Sara's spell was powered up enough.

"Damn it," she said. Sara moved to her bed and sat on it, resting her head in her hands. "Damn it damn it damn it."

So now she had demons trying to corrupt her into joining them. It wouldn't even be that bad of an idea, for her sake. She could, if she really tried, guarantee Leira and Mom and Dad's safety. She could even make it so they weren't aware of what was going on in the real world, and then she could travel from world to world, destroying and dominating unrestrained, until eventually her magic grew greater than Kil'jaeden's, greater than Sargeras's, and _she_ took command of the Burning Legion. But...

She had to sleep on it. Sara flopped onto her bed, buried her face into her pillow, and screamed, trying to put the delicious images out of her head.


	27. Chapter 26: All Around the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Ellemayne

She crept forward, bow in her grip, and cautiously peered around the corner.

Nothing.

Ellemayne waved her free arm forward, signaling the rest of her party that the way was clear.

The caves were damp and dark, save for the occasional growth of brightly colored elemental crystals. Rotten wood posts littered the ground, and slimy fungal mats clung to the pools of water. She'd never been in Maraudon before, even after it had been cleared out by Paradox, but she knew it wasn't supposed to be this quiet. There were supposed to be demons here.

But there weren't.

They scoured Maraudon's caves high and low. From the oozing upper levels, to the giant waterfall, to what had once been the throne of Princess Theradras. And there was not a trace of Burning Legion activity. No portals, no fel cannons, no eredar lords, no nathrezim, not even a damn imp. There was, however, plenty of evidence of _former_ Legion activity. Scraps of fel iron. The stench of fel magic, overpowering the pungent aromas of Maraudon. It was like the Legion had known ahead of time they were coming, and had evacuated. Either there was a spy amidst their ranks, or they were simply being led on like fools.

Neither possibility really appealed to the huntress.

All the same, with the way clear their melee crept forward, searching actively. Their rogues slunk through the shadows, looking for any demons hiding in kind, and the warlocks they'd brought along had enchanted everyone to see through any invisibility charms. Ellemayne took up her place near the end, where she wouldn't be in range of clashing axes and swords. Not that it seemed there would _be_ any.

Time passed. They ate, they camped, they moved. Eventually they circled back to the grassy meadow once inhabited by the daughter of the elemental lord Therazane. The raised platform of grass was surrounded on all sides by an enormous drop into the subterranean lakes of Maraudon, and waterfalls roared over the cliff faces around them. There was no trace of Princess Theradras's body except for a few stray boulders, and absolutely no evidence of demons, present or former.

"That settles it," Turaniles said. The older kaldorei woman sighed. "Maraudon is a ghost town. Lana, can we get a portal to Orgrimmar? Vol'jin has an assignment for us and I need to get to Ratchet from there."

"On it," the forsaken mage said, stepping into the middle of the clearing and summoning her arcane magic. In no time, a gaping wound in reality tore open, and revealed the dusty roads of Orgrimmar across it. Her guild filed through one at a time. There was no pushing or shoving as they went through, and before long Ellemayne stood before the portal. She took a step into it, calmly enduring as a surge of arcane power rushed around her, and caught herself elegantly when she landed in Orgrimmar.

The Horde capital had, thankfully, heavily militarized since the Legion had invaded, even more so than it already had been. Representatives filled the streets, shouting in Orcish for anyone who could to give up various materials such as gold or briarthorn for the war effort. Even from the Western Earthshrine they'd arrived at, Ellemayne could see Orgrimmar's wall, and by Elune had it been _built up._ The giant construct of spikes and plates had recently taken a battering from a fel reaver, _not that she could tell_ because it was unscathed.

There was no small amount of commotion when they appeared, since Orgrimmar _was_ the capitol of the Horde and their guild did include races primarily associated with the Alliance. After the same song and dance they went through each time, Turaniles was leading them towards Grommash Hold, where Warchief Vol'jin would supposedly give them a new assignment.

Hopefully it'd go better than their wasted days in Maraudon.

* * *

Fardol Brighthammer

"Rah!" he grunted, raising his shield and buckling as the mo'arg's mechanical hammer came down on it. "C'mon, is that it?!" he taunted, before summoning the Light to cast its searing, painful, distracting judgement upon the demon. Lances of fire and ice soared above his head, smashing into the demon engineer and sending the blasted thing back to the Nether, where it belonged. With that demon down, he turned to the next, a felguard that was making a line for their healers, and called again to the Holy Light. A hammer made of the golden magic formed and struck the unfortunate demon's spiked head, sending him to his knees. While the felguard was stunned he was swiftly cut down, allowing Fardol to focus on the main threat.

An eredar lord.

The massive demon was probably ten times Fardol's size, so he was glad _he_ wasn't the one keeping his attention. That job went to Selnek, a kaldorei warrior. The red skinned eredar's hands shone with brilliant orange fire, which struck around the armored man in the form of whips, spikes, and slashing claws, while simultaneously sending sparks to bombard the rest of their ten-strong group. But with the last of the additional demons dead, they could focus their efforts on the eredar.

The air was filled with shouts and cries as they poured their firepower onto the eredar, driving him back through Wintergrasp Keep as his magical shields slowly crumbled. The shelter was warm, filling him with toasty heat and reassurance. Fardol was confident they were going to _finally_ get a clean sweep. And then...

The eredar ran from their melee towards the colossal orange Titan orb hovering in the middle of the keep.

"Stop him!" Minnah shouted, sending a spiraling arcane barrage at the demon's bare chest. But it was too late. The eredar placed/ both his taloned hands on the pulsing metal sphere, and sent a blast of fel magic into it.

_WHUM!_

A nova of lightning washed over the ten of them, throwing them back into the keep's walls. Fardol's muscles spasmed as the electricity shot through his plate armor, and by the time he'd recovered the eredar was casting spells of shadow and flame left and right with the desperation of the nearly dead.

Nearly dead was correct. After few spells from their casters, thrown weapons from the other melee, and a hammer-shaped embodiment of the Light's wrath, the eredar was dead and they had successfully secured Wintergrasp Keep from the Burning Legion.

"Oy!" he shouted, sitting down and taking uneasy breaths as his muscles kept quivery. "Never knew that big ball could do _that!_ " he exclaimed.

"I don't think any of us did," Selnek said as he knelt by the body of the eredar. It wasn't dissolving back to the Nether, which meant that the demon was dead forever. "But what matters is that it's dead now. Minnah!" he shouted, getting the attention of the gnomish mage. "Do you think you and some other engineers can figure out how to control that electrical pulse?"

"Pfft," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "Piece of cake, gimme a day or two. On a separate note, good work everyone! Selnek, take the others outside and help the Darnassus army secure the border. Except you Fardol, I need to talk with you."

He gulped. That was rarely good. But dutifully, he followed Minnah into a corner of the Titan-sized room, his boots clanking deafeningly on the titanium floor. "So what'dya need?" he asked.

"It's about your 'Old God'," she said, even making air quotes. "I've been keeping up to date. So, she was in Nethergarde right? Yeah, that place is toast. Dreadmaul too. Demons swept in, apparently they're knocking on Darkshire's doorstep."

"She's dead?" he asked cautiously. If Sara died, then it was both good and bad. Good because now she couldn't rain hell within a few years, bad because, well. If Yogg-Saron had endured the first time it died, who was to say it wouldn't endure this time? The Old God of Death would vanish once again for a few decades before resurfacing. Nothing had actually changed. "Interestin'. Any body, or... ?"

"None I'm afraid, so I'm keeping my ears to the ground. So far there have been no survivors from either Nethergarde _or_ Dreadmaul, but if she's anything like you say she is she could've gotten away without raising any attention. I doubt it, but hey. Gotta consider it."

"So right now the lass's gone dark?" he asked. "Don't like it. She could be anywhere."

" _If_ she got away, Fardol. Nethergarde was smashed pretty hard. But I meant what I said. If on the off chance you're right, we really need to deal with her. Anyway, I just wanted to catch you up quick so you know how the situation's evolved. Now get out there and start searching for any stragglers."

He gave a sharp salute. "Roger, Minnah." He turned around and started the long trek out of Wintergrasp Keep.

Fardol wasn't entirely sure how to feel about Sara Smithers's disappearance. On the one hand, she was out of the picture and he could focus entirely on the war. It wasn't going well but they _were_ making some progress. The Wyrmrest Accord had reclaimed Dragonblight. Their guild, in conjunction with the sentinels of Darnassus, had taken over Wintergrasp. The story on other continents was grim, but it _was_ a start.

On the other hand, he doubted that the Old God was dead. If anyone could weasel a way out of a demon invasion, it was her. And that meant she was still out there, running amok with her dark powers and disregard for the lives of others. The thought of that twisted his gut. Who knew what she was up to? What poor innocents had fallen to her whims, robbed of everything they possessed and everything they were? He was a paladin, damn it! It was his duty to stop _things_ like her from doing just that. But there was nothing he could do. She was gone, and even if she did show up Fardol severely doubted he could confront her.

Blast it all, it might be years before he found the time to track her down.

* * *

Tichondrius

As ruler of the nathrezim, Tichondrius was beholden to certain standards. The standards his people had developed ever since selling their souls to - and then eradicating - the original demons. The standards they had developed over long years as mortals with a proud summoning heritage. The standards they had developed over their longer years of service to the Burning Legion.

He was never to kill a fellow nathrezim, re-materialization or not. He was expected to be a master of manipulation, and the countless mortal races who had torn themselves to shreds at nothing but _his_ command was proof of that. He was expected to command the armies of the Legion from relative safety, only taking the field when absolutely necessary. He was not to get his claws and fangs dirty, and let the lesser rabble do that instead. Especially not on a world that had a history of killing the Legion's commanding officers.

But alas, sometimes these things simply couldn't be helped.

His hand snapped out and grabbed the charging insect's head. With a fluid motion Tichondrius crushed its skull. He tossed the limp body to the side with enough force to leave a bloody crater in the wall, then pointed his left hand at an approaching kunchong. Furious shadow magic blasted its mind and the insect collapsed, slid a short distance to him while bleeding from in between the plates of its exoskeleton, then remained still. "Secure the eastern and western exits," he commanded the flanking wrathguards as his hooves clip-clopped on the amber floor. "Leave the empress no escape."

They gave confirmations in Demonic, leaving Tichondrius to approach the massive, magically sealed gates of the Mantid Empress with a phalanx of felguards at his back. He paused, and held out his left hand while flaring his wings. Tichondrius's demon magic flowed down his left arm, and he extended it at the wall. Between him and the felguards they had more than enough muscle to bash it down, but he felt they'd need that strength very, very soon. Finesse was the obvious correct choice.

In scarcely two minutes, he'd disassembled the wards on the gates. He brought his hands to his chest and then thrust them outward. A swarm of carrion insects appeared in his palms, covered in a ghostly green aura, and surged over the heavily reinforced gates, blowing them inward to reveal the throne of the current Mantid empress.

Empress Ver'makux had prepared for them, since she couldn't escape. The mantid was brutally tall, he had to admit, standing at twice even Tichondrius's height on four long, spindly yellow legs. Her ceremonial gown appeared to be filled with several enchantments - anti-demon enchantments, how quaint - and her arms, all fours of them, were ready to rend and tear while her mandibles twitched.

The moment she saw them her mandibles opened wide, and a low, droning sound burst forth from them. Tichondrius charged with the felguards at his back, but flapped his wings and dodged to the side at the last moment before a wall of sound burst from the empress's maw.

The wave of noise crashed into his demons, throwing them into disarray, but Tichondrius was already casting his magic. His vampiric aura was in place, so he simply loaded up the mantid with his selection of curses, afflictions, and shadow words, then began his work.

The mantid empress was a vicious opponent, and the nathrezim had to admit she probably would have killed him were he on his own. But a dreadlord was rarely alone. The sheer weight of his minions hacking at her and weighing down her long, graspable limbs kept her more or less in one place, letting him stay at distance and flay her mind with his magic, or drop infernals two at a time into the area. He couldn't drop them onto her, sadly. His felguards would still have some use as they pulled the mortal insect into the dirt where she belonged.

Not to say she didn't hurt them badly. Her screeches made his eardrums burst and blood dribbled from his ears. Her compound eyes seemed to burn into his dark soul with some strange compulsion spell, forcing Tichondrius to avoid looking at her directly. Some of his minions didn't fare so well though, and turned on their brethren before being cut down by his reinforcements. Pulsing fields of antimagic burst with such a clamor that Tichondrius was thrown into the walls, breaking his wings. The mantid's talons and claws ripped through armor like it was wet paper, rending and tearing demon flesh with alarming ease.

But there was no escape for her. After a short but unbelievably bloody and feral struggle she was brought down to the ground, her limbs broken or torn off. The empress screeched for her minions to aid her, but nobody came. She thrashed and cast wildly like the cornered animal she was, but eventually her struggles died down under their onslaught until, with a final anguished cry, she went still.

Tichondrius panted, a hand on each of his ears as he wove shadowy mending spells onto his form. "Spread out," he commanded his felguards and infernals once he was done. "Secure the perimeter. None but I are to enter this chamber." The rabble saluted - except for the moronic infernals - and moved outside of the throne room.

Now that Tichondrius wasn't fighting for his life against an enraged bug descended from Old God minions, he could properly take in the scenery of the throne room. He had to admit, he _was_ impressed. The ground was made of dull, dark purple stones, each shaped like circle arcs of varying dimensions and woven together to give the impression of flowing waves. The ceiling was tall and designed similarly, and the room had two wings off to the side where reinforcements for the empress were supposed to arrive. Guard rails had glowing red stones to make their faces, and golden steps rose to the throne of the empress. The throne itself wasn't actually anything, just a raised piece of ground with round, ornate bronze pillars to either side, but it still gave him the impression of majesty.

So naturally, he was going to defile it.

He strode to the two pillars and wrapped his wings around himself in a cocoon, muttered in the vile language of his people. His murmurs grew louder and more extravagant as he cast his magic, and in moments a window opened between the two pillars, pushing past the nether winds radiating from Argus, all the way to the capitol Mac'Aree. And there, his lord looked back at him.

"Tichondrius," Kil'jaeden growled. "I take it you have succeeded?"

He was already kneeling. "Of course, Deceiver. Both the pandaren and mogu strongholds are dust, and the mantid empire is in ruins. All that remains of those races are the fragments that escaped to other continents. Pandaria is ours."

The eredar lord nodded, a wicked smile on his face. "Excellent, Tichondrius. Begin reinforcing the shores of Pandaria and disable any portal routs you can find. Once this is done to your satisfaction, contact me again. Until then, continue as competently as you were."

"Of course, my Lord."

Then Kil'jaeden waved a massive hand, and the communication window winked out of existence. The ornate pillars he had used as a frame were tarnished black and green now, with none of the glamour they once held.

Tichondrius left, ignoring them like the useless scraps they were. He needed to wash his claws. Mantid blood was revolting.

* * *

Leira

Leira was up early that day. She ate an early breakfast, did an early workout, and just ran through her entire morning schedule early. This was no accident either, because she knew they were going on another mission today. Once she was done with her routine, she made her way through one of her guild hall's passages to the room she knew Sara resided in. Leira came to a stop in front of the wooden door and rapped her knuckles on it sharply.

Nothing.

She knocked again, harder, and was rewarded with a surprised thump from inside.

"Mh'aulg!" came Sara's voice from inside, and Leira had to blink. What did she just say?

A few moments passed, during which Leira could hear the human frantically getting dressed. Then the door opened, revealing Sara with her hair all over her face, her eyes half closed, and in her favorite brown shirt/brown dress. "Hmm, aq shn'an?" she growled, her mouth contorting hideously as she forced out the revolting, gut-churning sounds. "An'qyzz."

Leira stared at Sara, horrified. "Sara, _what?!_ "

The shorter human stared back at her for a moment, but then her eyes went wide and she shook her head. That, at least, got her hair mostly back into place. "Oh, um, sorry. I was practicing the language before bed. So what is it? It's really early."

Leira paused, then opened her mouth and pointed an unsure finger at Sara. "You were practicing Faceless."

"It's called Old God actually. Well, Shath'Yar, but it translates to the same thing."

"Can you please not speak it around me? By the Light, I felt nauseous listening to that."

Sara nodded. "Yeah, sure. So anyway, why am I up so early?"

"Breakfast," Leira said simply. "And exercise. Word on the street is we're getting another mission today and I think you'll be on this one."

 _That_ woke her up. Sara straightened up and blinked harshly. "Alright, let's go," she snapped, all business, as she squeezed around Leira and headed out. Leira took the lead back soon enough, guiding Sara to the mess hall where she'd already set out a small spread of food. Nothing fancy. Just some buttered rolls, water, bacon and eggs. The mess hall was mostly empty, given that Leira had woken up Sara at the unholy hour of five in the morning, so there wasn't much of a din as Sara ate her meal.

"So," her friend said in between bites of egg. "Any idea what this mission is?"

"No clue," Leira said truthfully. "Somewhere in the Wetlands, if I had to guess."

"Hmm," Sara said, and then devoted herself entirely to her food. After that was done Leira ran her through basic morning exercises, and her heart swelled with pride at how much wimpy little Sara had improved since arriving.

... okay maybe 'wimpy' was the wrong word to describe Sara. But still, spellcasters generally weren't the most physically fit people around, so their resident Old God was doing _damn_ well.

... resident Old God. The thought still sent Leira's mind jumping through a few hoops. Like, it made sense and all. Everything Sara had said to her that night, an inch away from _crying,_ had made sense. She was best friends with an Old God. It sounded like some lousy young adult novel about trying to redeem great evil through the power of friendship. Except there was no redeeming. She just had to hope Sara could keep herself busy. At helping her with that, the exercise, inscriptions, enchantment, and missions were doing swimmingly.

It didn't take her long to finish up Sara's workout, which left them a few minutes before they had to be in the assembly hall. They opted to go early.

Like before, there was a crowd gathering around Calven, who stood on the podium with several sheets of paper. She and Sara stuck by each other near the walls, waiting for the announcement to begin. The crowd was eerily quiet, standing and watching their guild leader in dead silence. Eventually, he deemed that enough people had arrived and cleared his throat.

"Alright, thank you all for coming," he began. "We've got a few new missions today, so I won't keep you longer than I have to. Your party leaders will fill in the details. Parties are: Darnall Skyshadow, Sproz Lightwheel, Clarice..."

He began listing off everyone, and Leira watched as people pushed through the crowds to their respective leaders. She kept her ears open, until... "Barab Bronzestout," he announced as the leader of the next group of five, and Leira fought down the urge to groan. _Oh no, not_ that _asshole. Please not that_ \- "Leira Vindalis."

" _Fucking hell,_ " she whispered under her breath.

"Tarod Straine, Saynna Raincaller, and Sara Smithers." She and Sara looked at each other, smiled, and bumped fists. Leira looked around, found Barab quickly and began leading Sara over to the dwarf while tuning out Calven. They weren't the only ones heading to the dwarf. Saynna, a night elf woman, and Tarod, a human man, also arrived alongside them.

"So," Barab said, eying them as they approached. "We ready ta go?"

Saynna nodded. "We are."

"Right then!" he grunted, turning and leading them out. "Go get your gear and meet me by the exit of the guild hall, I'll explain more there."

"Right, see you soon," Sara said in that cheerful tone that Leira had come to understand meant she was playing nice and hiding her dislike for the people around her. It wasn't a voice she got to hear often in private. They split up and left the main hall.

It didn't take her long to clip-clop her way to her cache of gear. Leira put on her enchanted rings and necklace, then got her armor. Getting into plate armor was always a challenge, and while she'd gotten used to the heavy weight it was always a fresh surprise at first as to how heavy it was. But she put on her helmet, her breastplate, gauntlets, and leggings, all part of a set of dark green armor with gold lines. Then she grabbed her weapons. Her left weapon was an enormous two-handed axe, made of bright blue titanium with serrated spikes along the edges, and no matter what conditions she was in the weapon was always cool to the touch. Her right handed weapon was a two handed sword, with a gorgeous red handle, sharp enough to cut through felsteel. Leira hefted both in one arm and slung them into the gaps on the back of her armor, where they remained still.

With that done, she left the Chimes's guild hall and exited into the Military Ward. Like usual, portals had been constructed for them to use. She was the first one out, so she got the pleasure of waiting for the others.

Saynna was the first, dressed in the natural green leather that druids loved so much, and she had to admit it complimented the night elf's hawk tattoo and white hair well. After her was Tarod, in caster robes similar to those she'd seen Sara wear. Not surprising, given how disturbingly similar his void magic was to Sara's Old God powers. And after him came Sara herself.

She'd gotten some gear for her own personal use. A band around her forehead, as well as a necklace and rings with saronite orbs in them. Her robes were, fittingly, dark purple and blue, designed to look like corrupted seaweed waving in the ocean. On her back was an enormous staff as tall as Leira, with a twisting headpiece that looked like a tentacle had wrapped itself around it. She fixed Sara with a dull look, which probably didn't translate well through her helmet. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

Sara gave her a shit-eating grin. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Then Barab came, covered head to toe in golden plate with a shield and mace at his sides. "Alright buckos, listen up." 

_'Buckos?'_ Sara mouthed. 

"We're heading to the Twilight Highlands. Word is that the demons have gotten real cozy in Grim Batol and are massing their numbers there. And, get this, Varimathras is there, leading them. Smithers, you think you can do that erasing spell on dreadlords?"

She snapped a finger, igniting a brief purple spark. "No problem."

"Right then! That's the portal," he said, pointing at one of many. "We get in, kill him for good, dismantle the base, get out. Don't screw this up folks. Now, on me! Three, two, one, charge!"

They ran through the portal.


	28. Chapter 27: They Do Not Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

  


There was something in the air of the Twilight Highlands.

It was not the pollen drifting in the air, nor was it the ash from the trees that had been burned down. It was not the dung of the local caribou, or the dew on the grass, or the rain waiting in the sky. It was not fel, it was not foul. It smelled like compost. It smelled like rocks used for sunning, like a lizard she had once tortured. It smelled like Derestrasz's scaly hide as Sara slept. It smelled like _life magic._

It smelled like the Red Dragonflight.

The portal had deposited them on a hillside, nowhere near any allied forces. A moment of looking revealed to Sara that it was not a hillside, but rather the walls of a canyon, with a dirt road winding through the bottom. She stood facing the road's direction. Behind her the canyon opened up into the entirety of the Twilight Highlands, which had regretfully healed from its days under assault by the Hammer. Grass covered the land, so green it appeared to be some form of algae. Lazy clouds heavy with rain dotted the distant skies, and wildlife ran through forests, though there WAS one patch of land charred black. No demonic activity at present, though.

Ahead of her, Sara could see Grim Batol. It was on the right side of the canyon, opposite from them. Despite all the various forces that had occupied it through the fortress's rather colorful history, it was clearly designed by the dwarves. Giant metal plates stood out from the mountainside, with a plated gate on top. But there were flashes of dark green inside the mouth of the fortress, fel cannons waiting eagerly for their next victims.

And to Sara's right was the Vermillion Redoubt, the local base of the Red Dragonflight. If she focused harder, she realized she wasn't smelling the massive concentration of life magic. Instead it just... infused her. It filled the air and clung to her like mucus, making her stomach churn and her throat clench. She couldn't make out any red dragons but even without them, the enormous, magically grown tree towered above the mountains.

Sara drew herself from her inspection and focused on the dwarf, What's-His-Name. He faced his back towards the four of them, eyeing Grim Batol. "There it is, Grim Batol. We're not just gonna go in guns blazin' of course. With the Reds occupied elsewhere in the region, we're on our own against this enormous force, and once we're in the only way out is gonna be hearthin' out. Smithers. You've made those invisibility enchantments for the rogues right?"

"First off it's not invisibility," she countered harshly. "Second - " She glanced at his expression and quieted. Internally, she rolled her eyes. "Yes sir, I did," she said in the most obnoxiously friendly voice she could manage while still sounding genuine. "I would guess you want a similar spell for us so we can sneak into Grim Batol?"

"That's correct," he said. "Start setting up the spell. Meantime! Tarod, Saynna! Power us up!"

Sara began concentrating. The glyph she'd made for some of their stealthier members was a near replica of her distraction gem. When they tried to hide, then they'd release the same distraction aura. Unfortunately, it did have friendly fire and she hadn't been able to get around it. Even she wouldn't be able to find them, and that irked her. Making a version to cloak the five of them was... possible, even without a gem, but she'd have to channel it constantly so she'd be nearly useless. Oh well, it was a good plan anyway even if she didn't get much killing. Her magic began to gather in her hands and -

_PAIN!_

Sara collapsed to her knees as a prayer for fortitude and a blessing worthy of kings flashed around her body. She screamed so loud she feared her throat would tear, eyes closed and tearing up. It was gone in a moment, but when it was instantly followed up with the familiar nausea of nature magic, she emptied her stomach onto the ground her magic had sunk into.

Let the red dragons puzzle _that_ one out.

"Holy shit!" Leira shouted, rushing over and helping her to her feet. "Sorry, I should've warned them," the draenei apologized before turning her helmeted head to the rest of their wide-eyes party. "Sara has... adverse reactions to the Light and nature magic," she explained while Sara was still heaving. "She'll be fine though. But just... keep that in mind."

"Gonna make healing you rather difficult," the kaldorei woman mentioned.

Sara stood up straight. "Ugh, thanks Leira. I'll be fine. I just wasn't expecting it." _If I was a full Old God it wouldn't hurt nearly as much,_ she thought, before banishing the thought. "Anyway, the spell." She focused her Old God powers, wrapping herself in a slow vortex of purple mist. Then she clenched her fists, and the mist burst outwards onto everyone else. Now that it wasn't in glyph form, she _could_ maintain the Friend Foe Identification Addendum, so they'd be able to notice each other. "It's up, let's go. It only discourages them from seeing us though, so don't draw attention to yourself," she snapped.

"Right then!" the dwarf shouted. "Close ranks." Everyone stuck close to Sara. "Follow me!" he ordered, trekking down the slopes towards Grim Batol. They marched.

And marched.

And marched.

... Grim Batol was _deceptively_ far away. Going down the slope while sustaining her spell took some concentration to keep herself from stumbling, but she could manage it even if it took quite a while. Then it was a long trek along the canyon road, then _up_ what could only generously be called a path to Grim Batol, all while sustaining the spell on herself and her allies. Despite her recent exercise, her legs throbbed by the time they got to the entrance, where fel cannons stared them down.

Sara brought a finger to her mouth to shush them, and then the What's-His-Name crept forward, inspecting the fel cannons. He nodded when they didn't fire - her spell disrupted their identification mechanisms, not just organic life - and pointed forward, past the operating gan'arg and doomguards. The five of them clung to the walls, tip-toeing around the demons and into the colossal hallway of Grim Batol.

She'd never been able to understand why dwarves built so high. She could fit two dragons on top of each other, with room to spare. The demons had been busy though, stripping down the plates of metal making up the walls for their own purposes, leaving a patchwork of solid stone.

The others' nerves were high as they waded through, ducking away from various demons as they made their way deeper. The first turn came up, and once they were in Sara saw an _enormous_ pile of rubble, spilled from one of the walls. It was the size of a dragon, and formed an easy ramp for them to walk up. Even better, there was a series of tunnels inside, hidden from the demons, where she could relax her magic.

Not that she would. There might be invisible sentries. Eyes of Kilrogg came to mind.

They nestled into the dusty, powdery tunnel, and breathed sighs of relief.

"Alright, that does it," What's-His-Name whispered. "Tarod, mind vision. Scout out the area. Once you're done, explain it to us."

"Right," the priest with them said. He crept towards the edge of their hole, and Sara followed to keep the aura with him. His hands flashed with shadow magic, his eyes closed, and then he went limp and fell right back onto Sara.

"Shit!" she hissed, crawling out from under him. Leira came over to help, lifting Tarod like he was a feather and backtracking deeper into their tunnel. Then they waited for him to finish scouting.

She'd done this same thing on her last mission, when the local priest scouted in the same manner. So she was capable of being patient.

The four of them sat, twiddling their thumbs and, in Sara's case, sustaining her spell as they waited for Tarod to come back to them. They drank some of their water, but not too much since they were liable to throw up from too much physical activity. Finally, after what felt like hours, the priest blinked his eyes and breathed out heavily.

"It's uh... it's not good," he explained. "In fact, it's worse than anyone expected. I found Varimathras, he's in one of the lower levels just above the magma pool. Uh, not the former egg chamber, deeper than that. Pretty well hidden. But there's gotta be thousands of demons between us and him. If we try and fight them, we are going to be crushed. There is just no way."

 _No way hmm?_ she thought.

The dwarf nodded. "Can you lead us to Varimathras?"

"In theory, but Barab listen, there are hundreds of them. Shivara, doomguards, we _will_ die."

"And any side passages?" their party leader inquired. "Can we sneak around them?"

Tarod hesitated. "There _are_ some less-occupied stairways within the walls, but there's no way we won't be noticed. There were some more advanced wards down there too, they'll expose us even with Miss Sara's spell active."

Suddenly, she had an idea. "What if I distract them?" she offered. "I go in with my defenses up, start blasting them, and you four go through the side passages while I keep the brunt of their focus? Then we meet up at Varimathras, if he doesn't retreat, and wipe him from existence."

"Sara," Leira said, her glowing eyes glancing at her uneasily. "You'll die."

"I will not!" she countered. "I've been practicing my magic quite a bit. My shield makes me completely immune now, and Leira, you've _seen_ how much magic I've got. And now I have enchanted gear," she said, pinching her robes. ", glyphs, and all sorts of potions. I can do this. And worst case scenario? I die, then you four die, then directly because of that _everyone else_ dies. My soul... well, lingers, and most of you go to the Holy Light and get to enjoy _that_ for the rest of time."

The draenei gave her a flat look. "You know, describing the worst case scenario as the total extinction of all life on the planet isn't making me feel better about this."

"Do you have any better ideas?" she countered, excitement bubbling in her chest.

Leira sighed. "Fine. Barab, what do you think?"

The dwarven paladin nodded grimly. "Heard about what ya can do, Smithers. Get out there and break a leg, but we ain't gonna be swoopin' in to save ya. Think you can find Varimathras on yer own?"

She considered that, looking into the distance. "Should be able to, yes. Look for a place near the bottom, and I can probably mind control a demon into spilling the beans. Tell me when to go," she said.

Barab sighed. "Well, your funeral, but we absolutely _gotta_ clean this place up and nobody else is nearby. Whenever you're ready. We'll follow behind."

Right. She took a deep breath to steady herself and strode towards the exit. "Turning off my aura now," she said, relaxing her magic. "Oh, and try to avoid looking at me if you can help it," she added. Then, Sara raised her left arm and summoned her shadowy barrier. She'd improved on it drastically, and it was a near perfect replica of the one her old self had used. Like she'd claimed, it now gave her total immunity. Not just from projectiles; every fire blast, every curse of doom, all of it would slide off like water. The only worry was it being dispelled, but she could always just cast it again. And with her glyph, seeing out of it would be simple.

With her barrier in place and her magic boiling under her skin, Sara stepped out to do battle with the Legion head-on.

* * *

Leira

  


She knew what Sara was, she knew what the human could do, but Leira couldn't help but worry. This was a _very_ bad plan. Catastrophically bad. Apocalyptically bad. Sara had her limits. She wasn't Yogg-Saron anymore. Her best friend was going to die and there was nothing she could do. But it was out of her hands. All she could do now was let her do her thing, so that Leira could focus on her job. It was a risky plan, but it was the best they had. She watched Sara slip down the ramp of stone and vanish from sight.

A moment passed.

Then, a corona of purple light nearly blinded her. Even from so far away, the rush of foul power sent chills down her spine. Leira heard the tell-tale sounds of demons disintegrating and of magic being cast. She winced at the sound of something hitting a wall _very_ hard, but held still. Slowly but surely though, the sound of roaring demons grew more and more distant.

They waited a few moments longer, then Barab nodded. "Alright, let's go! Tarod, you guide us but stay in back or I'll tan yer hide!"

"Got it!" their shadow priest said.

Following Barab, the four of them left their little alcove in the crumbled stone and got a good look at the devastation Sara had already wrought. There were cracks in the walls and small craters in the floor. The fel cannons in the front gate were scraps, and a few doomguard weapons had clattered to the ground, bent crudely and tinted violet. From their room, another hallway went on to the main area of Grim Batol. Sara had warned them not to look at her, but it sounded as though she'd already gotten decently far ahead, for Barab didn't hesitate when he led them on.

The central chamber of Grim Batol was an enormous cylinder that dug deep into the earth. Metal bridges criss-crossed precariously over a magma pool which painted their undersides orange. The area was boasted even more airspace than Ironforge, originally intended to allow for easy gryphon travel. Hammer and forge emblems clung to every corner, to the floor, and to the banners, but the presence of the Legion was overwhelmingly obvious.

Tarod hadn't been exaggerating when he said there were far too many demons. Winged demons filled the air, making use of the open space to fly in patrols. Walkways descending into the depths were crowded with various lesser demons practically shoulder to shoulder. There was an enormous variety. Everything from imps to shivarra, though none of the 'upper' level demons such as eredar or annihilan were visible.

Despite her warning not to look at her, Leira caught a glance at Sara. She was making her way across the precarious walkways, surrounded in her green barrier. Bolts of purple lightning blasted from her hands, as did green skulls. The human tossed her hands into the air, and an orb of death energy coalesced above her. Leira wasn't sure why at first, but a moment later the reason became clear as, from the orb, three twisting death rays scythed across the hoards of felguards. Sara slowly pushed her way forward, and though it looked like she was having difficulty, Leira assumed she had it well in hand.

"That way!" Tarod hissed. "To the right, into that hallway!"

"Got it," Barab confirmed, leading them into one of Grim Batol's many side passages.

Even the hallways were designed to allow gryphons to fly, but to Leira's despair she found that minor demonic portals had been constructed even here. These weren't the grasping hands from the earth that the Legion's main transporters took the form of. Rather, they were a simple ring of felsteel hoisted upright and leaning against the walls with waves of green light in their middles.

She took a deep breath and charged at the closest one. Her legs pounded against the ground as she sailed past her companions, and only a moment later she'd arrived at the closest teleporter, bashing it with her armored side hard enough to both dislocate her shoulder and to dent the portal. The light inside died, and the pain caused a flash of hot anger to rush through Leira. She held on to that anger. She focused and turned it towards the demons. She tried to imagine what harm they were doing. How many people were huddled in basements, praying an infernal wouldn't land on them, how many innocent men, women, children, even _babies_ they had killed... !

A moment later the others caught up, and a burst of Saynna's nature magic around Leira healed her shoulder. With the four of them combined, they started making good progress down the hallway, smashing any Legion portals they came across.

Now and then demons got in their way, either emerging from the portals or from around a corner to go fight Sara. Usually they could take them by surprise and rush them down, but every now and then they came across more perceptive soldiers, and they had to bitterly battle. But with Barab's command of the Light, Leira's furious swings with her double two-handed weapons, Tarod's dark magic and Saynna's healing powers, none of the demons' tactics would avail them.

They went down a few staircases, and Tarod guided them through countless intersections. Now and again they had to hold and wait for Sara to catch up, lest they get ahead of her and have to face the brunt of the Legion on their own. Leira tried to avoid looking in the direction of Sara's sounds of destruction, and instead focused on keeping her blood boiling. As long as she was angry, she could sunder plate armor and hack off the heads of void terrors with ease. As long as she was angry, her Old God glyph made her skin like chain mail.

As time passed though, they found they needed to pace themselves less and less. It was clear to her what had happened; the Legion sent their strongest available after Sara, and now that she had cleared through them she was speeding up. Leira had to smile; Sara had come a long way in terms of fighting ability. She made a mental note to tease her about it later.

Eventually, the four of them arrived near Khardros's Anvil, Grim Batol's answer to Ironforge's Great Forge. Rivers of lava poured from the ceiling, and a vast walkway filled with demons went in an arc around it. Leira's group was in the alcoves above, nervously watching the frantically milling gan'arg, mo'arg, and felguards. Not long later, Sara came in through one of the gates. It was hard to make out anything from so far away, but Leira couldn't miss the shield of green energy, or the similar emerald power blazing around both her hands. Sara's skin was bright red though; Leira hoped her endurance could hold out.

But she didn't linger: Sara had said to avoid looking at her, and if she had then that meant at least one of the spells she was using had friendly fire. Leira ducked below the alcove's raised ledge and listened to the symphony of demons getting blown apart.

Until suddenly, it stopped.

The sound of battle hadn't progressed out the other gate. It just... came to a stop, letting the clamor of dwarven machinery fill the air. Cautiously, they peered over the ledge, and Saynna stifled a gasp at what they saw.

Sara was still fine, she hadn't died. The human was in a caster stance with her left arm out and her staff affixed to her back, along with a corona of death energy around her outstretched hand. That magic was being pointed at a towering, blue-armored dreadlord. The two of them weren't fighting either. Judging by his hand gestures, the dreadlord was speaking to her, and Sara was silently taking it in.

Leira, of course, couldn't hear what was being said. The demon clenched a fist and leered menacingly at Sara, then made a sweeping gesture that ended with him drawing a claw across his throat menacingly. To her confusion, Sara swayed like a fern caught by a spring breeze. The reincarnated god blinked and looked down, grimacing as if she was faced with a difficult problem, or a decision.

The dreadlord continued to speak, whispering some unknown poison into her best friend's ears and Leira wanted _so badly_ to jump down there and skewer him through the head while he was distracted, but held herself.

Something appeared behind them with a _thrum._ At once, all four of them wheeled around to see their intruder. It was a floating eye the size of a gnome, perfectly spherical and green like acid. Toxic clouds clung to its surface, and in its center was a narrow cat-slit of orange, with veins stretching across its surface. The Eye of Kilrogg stared at them for a moment longer, then released a small burst of fel energy and vanished.

"Aw hell no!" Barab shouted, springing to his feet. She followed his example; they'd been discovered. "Run for it!" he shouted, charging ahead down the corridors Tarod had described. Leira nodded. She heard the dreadlord make some sort of bellowing command, but then a blast of purple magic engulfed him, and when it ended there was nothing left, not even the armor that would've been left behind by a dead dreadlord. Sara had started to run, so Leira followed her example.

They almost instantly came across stairs and bolted down them. But no sooner had the four of them reached the bottom than they were assaulted by a trio of doomguards, brandishing barbed scimitars and grinning too wide at them.

Barab was there first, slamming into one with his shield, the other with a holy hammer, and consecrating the land to grab the attention of the third with righteous fury blossoming forth from him. Tarod was already casting his afflictions on the left one, leaving Leira to charge the one on the right.

She was fast, but it was faster. The moment she was in range it swung at her hard, and the blade caught a weak point in her armor. It hit her skin, but she was _so pissed off_ it bounced off her skin and left her with little more than a paper cut. Then her sword and axe crashed upon its right wing, completely severing it.

The demon wasn't deterred, and she instantly realized her mistake when it focused instead on her, not Barab. Oh well, these things happened. Not everyone was fooled. She readied her weapons and began clashing with the doomguard's dual scimitars. At first it looked like she'd overwhelm the demon through the sheer weight of her weapons, but then it snarled some disgusting demonic words and a burst of darkness engulfed Leira. She nearly collapsed on the spot. Her legs were noodles, her arms limp, she'd been nearly crippled on the spot by the magic. When it next swung at her, she blocked it with her sword and bit her tongue to avoid screaming as pain shot through her limb.

The pain helped her focus though. Gritting her fangs, Leira pushed back, with her mind blazing as she searched for the next angle to attack or the next place to block. She cut off the other wing and stabbed a deep wound beneath the doomguard's sundered armor, but then it cast something else at Leira.

A blue skull appeared over her head.

By then though, the cripple spell wore off and she killed the wounded doomguard easily, then helped the others. In record time they'd killed the doomguards and ran on. A shimmering barrier of the Holy Light formed around Leira, but a moment later it imploded as a shock of something horribly cold struck her heart in an attempt to kill, coincidentally at the same time as the blue skull vanished. But then the warmth of druidic magics wrapped around her and she was back on her hooves like nothing had happened.

They left Khardros's Anvil behind in record time, following Tarod's instructions to reach the lair of the dreadlord - if said dreadlord was even going to humor them by going there - while Sara kept up with them at a frantic pace. Leira didn't look at her, but she _did_ occasionally feel her Old God magic lapping at her back like cold slime.

Soon enough, as they descended closer to the armor-broiling heat of the magma below, Sara came upon a stairwell that let her reunite with them just before they could enter the tunnel Tarod claimed was the nathrezim's hideout. Sara didn't exactly descend the stairs though; she seemed to half stumble, half fall down them. Leira was there in a flash, grabbing the human as her barrier flickered out before she could crack her head on the patterned floor.

"Hey there, you alright?" she asked. The human's skin was as red as a tomato and she was positively drenched with sweat. Her muscles vibrated softly beneath her skin, and her eyes were unfocused.

In response, Sara retched. Then, as if moving underwater, she grabbed one of the mana potions on her belt and chugged it. She retched again, but held it down and drank another mana potion.

And another.

... and another.

After five potions, Sara moved away from Leira. "Thanks," she croaked through a dry throat. "Damn it, remind me never to do something like that ever again." Sara took a swig of her waterskin to hydrate herself, practically pouring the water over her face.

Saynna approached, her arms already alight with nature magic. "Are you alright, Sara? Do you need healing?"

Sara recoiled from the swirling plasma like it was fire, but relented and nodded. "I didn't get hit with any weapons, but a few curses slipped through and they nearly knocked me off the side a few times," she admitted. A flash of a regrowth spell hid her for a moment, and when they could see Sara again she shivered. "Also, I'm out of mana potions now," she admitted, looking at Barab. "If you want me to erase a _dreadlord_ we're gonna have to weaken him first."

"Ah, that's fine," the armored paladin explained. "Standard nathrezim tactics: Spread out around him, poke anyone who falls asleep, and immediately prioritize any friends he brings in." He paused then added, as an afterthought, "Oh, and watch your backs. Don't need any of you getting snuck up on. Now move in!" he ordered.

Leira fell back to walk with Sara as they entered. Despite the mana potions and healing magic, Sara still looked half dead. "Hey," Leira said. "You did good back there. Like _really_ good. All that training finally paid off, huh?"

Sara obviously tried to stop it, but she saw the human crack a smile. "Yeah, I guess it did. Kinda low on magic though. If it's _the_ Varimathras I don't know if I even _can_ erase him."

"Hey, don't worry about it!" she said, clapping Sara on the back. Unfortunately, with her armor and Sara's exhaustion, the human nearly fell over. "Err, sorry. But like I said, even if you can't erase him we can always just hurt him, badly." They rounded a corner and a gargantuan chamber came into view, filled with deactivated portals and uncountable dwarven weapons thrown into lazy piles.

"I guess," Sara said. She snapped the fingers on her left hand, and her shadowy barrier reformed itself. "I think he's the dreadlord I found in the forge actually. Teleported away, too, so we'll have to be careful."

"Right," Leira said.

Then, a _whoosh_ of arcane surrounded Sara. A moment later, her barrier vanished. Leira jumped away while Sara came to a startled halt. "What?!" the human asked, making everyone stare at her as Sara eyed a felhound hidden in the corner. The demon licked its fangs, and dribbles of Old God magic seeped from its fangs.

Then a dreadlord appeared behind Sara.

It was enormous, far taller than it had seemed from a distance. It absolutely dwarfed her and Sara. Claws like shortswords. Fangs like daggers, wings that could blot out the sun and plate armor that Leira could hide inside. With a single fluid motion the dreadlord brought its claws up, swung down, and with a burst of gore they erupted out of Sara's chest.

Leira stumbled back in horror as the dreadlord lifted Sara into the air. The human made a sound like a deflating balloon, feebly grabbing the claws and trying to dislodge herself. Then, with a grunt of effort, the demon spun around and flung the human deep into the chamber, his claws ripping out of her side gruesomely as he did. Sara rolled to a stop and did not stir.

Varimathras didn't give them a moment to take in what had just happened. He charged into Leira and swept her aside with his giant claws, knocking her into the wall.

Then they were upon him. Tarod took a moment to kill the offending felhound while Barab charged him, calling down the Holy Light. Like he'd ordered they spread out, but Leira felt like she was moving in slow motion. Had this dreadlord really just... just...

Time sped back up, and Leira saw red. She roared and charged the dreadlord, leaping heroically halfway there. She arrived at the back of his armor, between his shifting wings, and drove both her sword and axe into his back. Varimathras roared and swung around, wrenching her free and sending her through the air. While she was airborne he thrust both hands at her, and an enormous _blast_ of insects and fel energy sent her flying into the wall.

She didn't acknowledge the pain, or how she'd landed beside _Sara's body._ She was up and intercepted the fight again.

Her sword flew and her axe sundered. Barab purified the land and judged the dreadlord while Tarod frantically wove as many magics as he could in a vain attempt to pierce the nathrezim's shadow resistance, and Saynna had shapeshifted into a treant to keep up with Varimathras's hideous power. Shadow novas to blast them back, life drains to sap Barab's essence. Sleep spells, burning infernals. Then Varimathras leaped into the air and curled up, wrapping his wings around himself. Leira tried to cut off one of his hooves, but he vanished...

... and reappeared behind Saynna, who'd since shifted back into a night elf. Her glowing eyes went wide a moment before the dreadlord impaled her from behind, just like Sara, and tossed her away. She was dead before she hit the ground.

With her gone, Varimathras had an easy job shredding apart Tarod. The priest's cloth armor offered no resistance, none of his shadow spells had managed to stick, and both she and Barab couldn't reach the dreadlord fast enough to stop him.

Three down.

He didn't focus on her next, _he didn't think she was a threat_ and she made sure to carve a gash down his thigh for that, but without any of their spellcasters it wasn't long before the demon's claws tore through the dwarf's armor and lacerated the flesh beneath.

Leira had the presence of mind to help him. She bowed her head and called out to the Light to mend him. A flash of light over Barab and a blue sigil in front of her own forehead confirmed that she had successfully bestowed her gift upon him, and the paladin had also called to the Light to shield himself with an unbreakable barrier.

That was right. With the power of the Holy Light, they would purge this darkness and avenge -

Barab's shield flickered out, and Varimathras ran him through.

"OH FUCK NO!" she roared, launching herself at the dreadlord. That was it. That was IT! This dreadlord thought he could show up on _her_ planet, killing _her_ people, massacring _her_ friends?! It was time to disabuse him of that notion!

His claws rent her armor in moments but bounced off her skin like it was titanium. She timed her next strike to parry his left hand and then swiftly overpowered him and cut the claws into harmless nubs.

"Grah!" he grunted, vocalizing for the first time. "Impudent mortal..." Varimathras flapped backwards to stand over Sara's corpse. For a moment Leira thought she saw something glimmer around the human, but she ignored it and instead charged the dreadlord head on.

He sent a shadow bolt at her. Leira was moving too fast to dodge, but the laughing skull just splashed around her head like it was water. Varimathras's carrion swarm spell pushed her back a step, but by then she was already there and she stabbed him through the gut as quick as she could with her sword, while sundering his armor with her axe.

She was a tornado. She was an executioner, a siegebreaker, a bladestorm. She cut and sliced and spun, leaving rended wounds, or punctured eyes, or maimed legs in her wake. From time to time her fury ebbed and the dreadlord shocked her with darkness or cut her and drew blue blood, but that would remind her of what he had done and then she was nearly indestructible again.

The dreadlord roared as she got a good chop on his right shoulder, bringing him that much closer to death. She was close, Leira could sense it. The demon's armor was cracked and falling apart, his natural weapons were broken, and black blood dribbled down his body like a fountain. But then he grabbed her with his left hand - his claws were still gone - and tossed her into a wall hard enough that she saw stars.

But before she could get her bearings, and before Varimathras could follow up, Sara's corpse released a blinding flash of green light. When Leira could see again, the human was floating. Her eyes were glowing, too; the sclera were flourescent orange, and both her irises and her pupils had melted together into brown disks, like dried mud. Her betentacled staff clattered to the ground. The dreadlord wheeled around and faced her in shock. "What?!"

"Death and I," Sara intoned in a black voice. "We have an understanding."

Leira's blood ran cold and she slumped onto a pile of dwarven hammers. Without even a hand gesture, Sara shielded herself. Instantly, the air was saturated with Old God magic, slimy and gross and _oh so wrong_ against her skin.

A carrion swarm burst over Sara, but did nothing to even budge the hovering human. Instead, Sara brought her hands together and close to her body. They started glowing bright green, more and more, and then with a shout she thrust her hands at Varimathras.

The dreadlord teleported behind her, but to Leira's confusion no magic shot from Sara. Instead, she pivoted around in mid-air and pointed a finger at Varimathras. _This_ time her magic was released, a colossal cone of purple and black and green. It crashed over the dreadlord before he even had a chance to realize he'd been tricked. A portion of the magic wrapped around his head and reverberated back to Sara, but otherwise the demon was completely overwhelmed. He leaned backwards, with one hand out to protect himself, and froze in that spot.

His body shattered like glass, not even dissolving into bats. Where he'd been there a green outline in the same pose, almost invisible in the torrent of magic, but then that too shattered and the dreadlord was gone forever.

The magic died, and Sara stopped floating. She fell to the ground like a sack.

Leira shook off her shock and ran towards her. She knelt beside the human and inspected her. There was a trickle of blood oozing from the back of her head, and while the gargantuan wound from earlier was gone her robes were still drenched in blood. Once she was satisfied Sara was still breathing, Leira fished out one of her health potions and held it to Sara's mouth. It took some effort to make the unconscious human drink it, but sure enough the red liquid disappeared down her throat. A moment later Sara's head stopped bleeding, she coughed violently, and her eyes shot open. "Wha?" she stammered.

"Holy shit!" she shouted, wrapping her arms around the human. "Sara don't do that, I thought you were dead!"

"Choking," Sara croaked.

Leira let go, only for Sara to fall back onto the ground. "Sorry. Think you can stand?" she asked, offering a hand.

"Yeah, yeah just give me a moment." Sara took the offered hand and Leira hoisted her up. The human swayed uneasily. "I actually was dead, you know. I wasn't joking when I said Yogg-Saron could revive itself." Her eyes went wide all of a sudden. "Oh no, I'm out of mana. I don't have any magic. I-If I die _now_ it's gonna be for real and - "

"Hey hey," Leira insisted. "Calm down. We did it, right? We can hearthstone out, wait for you to get your magic back, and then you can revive them. What matters is we blew up the Legion and you erased Varimathras." She took off her damaged helmet and felt around. Leira had suffered a few wounds too, now that she could focus on it. There was a bleeding cut on her cheek, and it felt like her forehead would be sprouting a bump. The news elsewhere on her body would likely be the same, since her armor was practically torn to ribbons.

"Wouldn't have been able to without you," Sara said. "I was watching while trying to revive myself, you beat the _shit_ out of him. I basically just stole your - " She cut herself off. "Wait, no. We've been had!" Sara suddenly exclaimed.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

Sara clenched her fists. "I read the dreadlord's mind before killing him. It wasn't Varimathras and Grim Batol isn't the Legion's main base here. They just moved a bunch of guys here to throw us off, and the dreadlord was just pretending to be Varimathras. He was some _nobody_ dreadlord called Lorthiras. The whole purpose was to draw someone out here while the Legion's _actual_ force struck at the Red Dragonflight. Leira we've gotta get outta here," she insisted, sounding strained.

Leira nodded grimly. "Damn it. Alright, gather them up together. Make sure all of them are holding you and then hearthstone out. Hmm, no. I'll take Barab and Saynna, you just take Tarod. Let's get the hell out of here before they send any more demons. And hey." Under her helmet, she smiled at her. "Thanks for coming back. I was worried."

Sara smiled back. "No problem. I'm not staying dead if I can help it. Now let's get outta here."

In no time they'd gathered up the bodies and Leira fished out her hearthstone. Her head was starting to buzz and the world gently spun, so she probably needed to see a medic. But they'd done it. Despite what Sara said, Leira was confident this was a victory. They'd sent so many demons back to the nether and permanently killed a dreadlord, right? The red dragons could hold.

They were going to win this war.

* * *

Talgath the Inexorable

  


He strode into Darkshire atop a wave of darkness. The town's defenders were in disarray, which meant it was the perfect time for him to go in and finish them with minimal risk to himself.

Talgath arrived on the hill overlooking the small town. It'd been fortified heavily by the Alliance and had been a challenge worthy of his skills, but its fate was written in stone. The gryphon roost was in splinters, the walls were crumbled, and even though the defenders had forced Argolash to retreat, destroyed his imps, his wrathguards, his shivarra and his infernals... they had yet to destroy _him._

His defenses were in place, and a duo of manaburn shards floated by his head. He stepped through a hole in the brick wall and eyed the defenders.

They were ready for him. A phalanx in front. Archers in the back, and spell casters off to the sides, spread out. Even a few ballistae aimed toward him. Those would be the first to go.

A score of arrows and spells fell upon him but bounced off his chest thanks to his ironskin enchantment, and already his manaburn shards were frying the casters. Talgath brought his hands up to his right and swirled fire magic inside for a moment, and then he unleashed the flames of doom from his left hand. A quartet of incineration fires snaked through the air, blue at the front, and then smashed into all four of the ballistae, reducing them to splinters before they could fire their first shot at him. The mortals operating them dove for cover.

He unleashed his next spell, a curse of unbound agony, on one of the archers. He screamed in pain as the bright purple glow ate away at his life. His allies decursed him in moments... and as a result, the curse spread to another _two_ mortals. Then when they either died or were decursed, it would spread to four, then eight...

But he wasn't going to wait. He prepared another fire spell, bringing his hands to both of his sides as though juggling fireballs, then tossed his right hand into the air. From the cloudy sky, fireballs began streaking down and crashed into Darkshire. There wasn't much force behind them, but that wasn't the point. It forced the mortals to dance, and it caught fire to every single building that wasn't yet ash. Even if they extinguished the blaze, the fire would keep raining.

His left manaburn shard was destroyed by archers, and the phalanx was tossing arrows at him and charging to engage him in melee. He resummoned the shard and brought his right hand up. Darkness pooled around it, and then he slammed that hand into the dirt. A colossal shadow nova washed over the mortals, pushing them back and outright killing the ones closer to him.

His curse of agony was spread to sixteen by now. Those afflicted could do little against him, wracked with pain as they were. However there were still plenty functioning mortals, so Talgath continued the onslaught of his finely-honed battle magic.

It took Talgath little more than a minute to decimate the ranks of Darkshire's army. Smoke poured into the air, and bodies littered the ground. Before long there was one single mortal left, a paladin man dressed up in brilliant golden armor. "Back!" the human shouted bravely, charging at Talgath. "Back, foul creature!"

There was a shimmering barrier around the mortal, a divine shield that signified the Light's blessing to protect him from all harm. Nothing could get past that shield until it expired...

... well, _not quite_ nothing. There was one spell Talgath knew that would pierce that shield for certain. His hands came up and colossal darkness began to pool between them. It was a spell he was well versed in, though not as well as the greater eredar lords. Lord Kil'jaeden - and before his death, Lord Archimonde - could cast this spell with naught but a second's preparation, and they would not have to wait five minutes in between casting it. He was nowhere near as adept, but within five seconds Talgath finished casting.

He pointed a single finger at the human, and the world turned blood red. The sky, the earth, everything. From his finger a thick beam of crimson death magic burst forth. It crashed hatefully upon the paladin, killing any creatures in the air between him and the mortal. It pierced through the shield like it did not even exist, striking the paladin, his children, and his children's children with the deadliest spell known to Talgath. The finger of death.

The mortal dropped dead where he stood.

Talgath could sense no more life within Darkshire. He sent out a telepathic order to his minions to begin moving in.

Domana had yet to regenerate from her failed attempt at recruiting the mortal, and he'd heard that Lorthiras died _permanently_ up in Grim Batol on some distraction mission. But that mattered not.

With Darkshire fallen, the way to Stormwind City was clear.


	29. Chapter 28: Looming Abyss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.
> 
> If you enjoy, please do leave a comment!

Sara

  


Once they hearthstoned back to Ironforge, it took a few hours to be both debriefed, and for Sara to get enough mana to resurrect the others. The three had, of course, showered her in praise for bringing them back to life and she'd preened under the attention, even while despair ate away at her gut.

She failed. Sara had failed. For starters she'd _died_ and if it hadn't been for her enchanted gear she simply would not have had enough power to resurrect herself. She should've been happy she managed to do it, and to finish off the dreadlord, but after being debriefed by the guild's leaders Sara just wanted to retire to her room and sleep.

But sleep didn't help her much. Like every day since touching Yogg-Saron's corpse, she dreamed of her past life, of her days as an Old God. Like every day, the dreams served only to make the burning urge in her gut hotter, tempting her stronger and stronger to run off to Ulduar and become what she was _supposed_ to be, to fulfill the reason for her existence.

It was all the worse because she couldn't even claim she was being magically influenced or such, her desires were simply wearing down her willpower.

And after she woke up from a dream of solving a magical puzzle given to her by N'Zoth, she could only think about what had happened in Grim Batol. She'd done well. Astoundingly well, better than she could have hoped. She hadn't been able to use her erasing spell, she needed to conserve her mana, but even without that she'd decimated the Legion. Psychosis spells flayed demons apart, mind maladies bounced between them. Brain links forced them to maneuver and death rays turned them to ash, all while she sat safely behind her death barrier. She'd nearly run herself ragged keeping up with Leira's squad, but she'd done it.

But... that dreadlord that had appeared in the forge. The same one that had killed her, which she then killed herself. It had spoken to her about the same things the succubus had. It wanted her to join them. It reiterated the sayaad's arguments and supplied some of its own, going straight for what _Sara wanted._ He spoke of how she wanted to kill people, how she liked to hurt people, and how she could have all that she wanted and more. She would fit right in with the demons. But before he could tempt her more, she heard the others be discovered and then she blasted the demon, only to have him teleport away.

But while he was gone for good, she couldn't get his _words_ out of her head. She couldn't get the succubus's words out of her head, nor could she ignore the images she saw of her old life.

Sara groaned, and stood from her bed. The moment she got on her feet she nearly collapsed because fire shot through her legs, so bright and hot she could barely stand. Even once she laid on the ground and put no pressure on them, they continued to churn painfully. She had over channeled in Grim Batol, and her recent over channelings were finally catching up to her. Her legs, once broken in Ahn'Qiraj and subjected to far more magic than her body could handle, were failing her.

Her body was falling apart. Didn't that mean it was time to get a new one?

She pulled herself onto her chair and fished out a piece of paper. Sara laid it across her desk and fetched a pencil. Once done, she began scribbling, if for no other reason than to solidify the idea in her mind.

Lines and runes appeared. She had to cross reference with books on the density of arcanite powder, or the magic storage of sha crystals, or even just refer to the Old God knowledge in her brain, but the spell matrix began to take form. After an hour of nonstop work, she paused and inspected the circular form she'd drawn.

If she did it, it would be without a doubt the most complex spell she had ever undertaken. In fact, it was hopeless for her to cast it on her own. There were just so many parts to it. She hadn't even completed it yet; the spell in the form it was now would simply drain her of her mana and then kill her. But if she finished it, then gathered the materials, then gathered assistants, and cast it...

... she would be Yogg-Saron again.

Sara caught herself. "Damn it!" she shouted. She grabbed the paper and tore it in half, then the halves in half, then the quarters in half, and tossed the eight shreds onto the floor behind her. "Damn it damn it damn it!"

"Damn what?" someone asked through the door.

She sighed. "It's open, come in Leira."

The door swung in and Leira clip-clopped inside, closing it behind her. "I heard you shouting, is everything alright?"

"No," she moaned miserably. "Everything sucks, Leira. We're going to lose this war."

Sara didn't look at Leira, instead opting to rest her forehead on the desk. Still, she heard the draenei sit on her bed. "We're not going to lose this war."

"Yes we are!" she protested. "Everything's going wrong. We haven't pushed the Legion back an inch! We have no idea where their central portals are, or where their leadership is, and we keep losing ground!"

"It's always been like that Sara. Remember when we learned about the War of the Ancients? Or the Battle for Hyjal? We always lose a lot of ground, but it lets us buy enough time to trap the Legion and force them off world."

"So what?" The words of the succubus came to mind. "Just because we've always won that way doesn't mean we always will. It's like saying that nothing's killed you yet, so you're immortal."

" _You_ are," Leira pointed out.

"That's not the point!" she nearly shouted. "Unless someone does something drastic, we're all going to die." Sara felt sick, like she was standing over a canyon and about to fall in. "Kil'jaeden isn't even on Azeroth yet, who knows how bad things will get once he arrives? I kinda doubt he'll fall for the whole 'Wisps at the World Tree' shtick like Archimonde. But - " She cut herself off.

"But what?" Leira asked worriedly.

"But I can beat them," she breathed. Sara sat up and looked behind her, at the torn up prototype ritual. "I'd just need some ingredients, some servants, and passage to Ulduar. I'll turn back into Yogg-Saron, rise from Northrend, and kill _every single demon on the planet._ I wouldn't have to destroy the world. I could keep myself under control. I could, I could - " she stammered.

"Whoa, hold up," Leira said. "Let's pause on the Old God plan alright? Didn't you say there was a chance that you'd be, I don't know, consumed or something if you become an Old God again?"

"There's a chance," Sara admitted. "But if that _doesn't_ happen then it'd be me piloting the powers of an Old God, and the alternative is everyone dying, and nothing interesting will ever happen again because this planet's going to become a sterile rock, so I have to at least _try!_ "

"And not that I don't trust you, but I don't like the sound of that," Leira pointed out, raising her hands calmly. Sara could tell she was putting in great effort to remain calm. "I mean okay, let's say you change back and kill the Legion. And with your power, you keep anyone else from killing you, and you control yourself enough not to kill them, _and_ you explain the situation to them, _and_ they believe you, _and_ they stand down. Then what?"

"I don't know. I guess I just keep my body someplace it won't bother anyone and make an avatar to live my life."

"Alright, so you have an avatar and you keep yourself under control for a few years. What about the years after that? Or the decades after those? The centuries? The millennia?" Leira paused. "What about when your parents are dead? When I'm dead? Are you still going to hold back then?" Sara didn't answer. Instead she looked at the ground in shame, because she and Leira both knew the answer. "Hey, look. If it looks like we have _absolutely_ no other choice, and literally everyone is about to die? Go Old God and make them pay," she snarled, clenching her fists. Then the warrior softened. "But please, give it some more time. Have faith in the Alliance. Have faith in us, okay? No need to self destruct the world yet."

"Leira, I - " But how did she say _'But I don't know if I'd even want to hold back'_? And why should she? Because it was the right thing to do... from the mortal perspective? She sighed shakily. "Alright. I'll hold on to this. We can still win normally," she told herself. After all, they only needed to stall until they found the Legion's entryway. Then they could focus everything on that point and then they'd win. There was no reason for her to _go back._

Not yet.

Leira smiled at her. "Glad to hear it! Now come on, you haven't had lunch yet have you? It's on me."

Sara sighed, but got up. "Alright. Just - ow! Coming."

By then the warrior was already at the door, and looked back at her in concern. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Just my over channeling is finally catching up to me. Walking's gonna suck."

Her face softened. "Well then take it easy. Skip today's run if you don't feel up to it, we'll wait until you get better."

 _Leira,_ she wanted to say. _I'm not going to get better._ But she didn't say that. Instead she followed Leira, who went slowly to keep pace with her, out of their guild hall and into the Commons. As they walked, they didn't speak to each other. Sara busied herself with looking around Ironforge, and inspecting how much had changed.

The strain of the war was finally becoming evident. There was nobody selling bread. Nobody going to auction their wears. Government representatives asking for raw materials lined the walls, and while she didn't have anything useful on her at the moment Sara _did_ falsely promise to give something soon, while quietly tweaking their minds to have improved patience. There was a gloom in the air that, for once, Sara couldn't take comfort in. People's shoulders were slightly slumped, they didn't move so quickly, and the various taverns they passed weren't as boastfully loud as they used to be.

It was a sickening relief to know she wasn't the only one who understood how dire things were.

Leira didn't lead her to the Stonefire Tavern. Instead they went to some Gearsprog Inn that had opened up recently, and the draenei swore the cheese there was to die for, if they could buy any before they ran out for the day. They got a table in the homely little building and ordered broth with cheese shredded onto it, as well as some water to drink.

"So," Leira asked after their meals arrived, but before they dug in. "Now that we pulled you out of _that_ plan, what're you doing for today?"

She thought about it, blew on her soup, then sighed. "I've got three requests for soul eater enchantments, two warlock glyphs, a priest glyph, and four, ugh, mental integrity enchantments." Those ones were a pain in the ass to make. "You?"

Leira shrugged. "I've got a few ores to smelt down, afternoon workout, then I have to go to the kitchen, help take inventory of what we've got. That's gonna be my whole day."

"Hmm," she grunted, taking a spoonful of her soup. It was tolerable, the cheese was well flavored and the spices tickled her nose. She was certain it was reheated though, something about the flavor... "Well, that's a plan at least."

They continued to eat in a comforting, easy silence. The soup was warm in her stomach, and had Sara's eyes drooping. By the void, when was the last time she'd gotten a good night's sleep? There was her time in the guild, then before that was the Ulduar escapade, and before that being in Nethergarde... probably at one of her stops en route to Silithus, months ago.

Yikes.

But sleep would have to wait another day. She had a lot of orders to fill out for her specially made Old God enchantments and glyphs, and they weren't exactly trivial to make even if the ingredients were easily on hand.

It was to be another busy day, filled with flowing mana, burning eyes, and trembling legs. After her late lunch with Leira, the hours blended into each other, and Sara barely even noticed when she dragged herself into bed at three in the morning and was out like a light.

She dreamed of the ancient day when the void lords arrived on Azeroth, found the Old Gods, and _tried_ to make copies of them to serve their own goals.

* * *

The next day started off, much to her displeasure, almost exactly the same, except she and Leira didn't have time to get lunch together.

This was because everyone was called to a guild meeting.

Sara pushed and shoved through the crowds, dressed casually in a brown dress. Calven was already on the podium, furiously banging his hammer and shield together to try and quiet the guild down. The commotion was deafening. Rings of people talking with each other, individuals wandering about looking for someone to explain why everyone was shouting. The confusion was lovely, but the volume was nauseating. Behind Calven was something that sent a bad feeling straight to her stomach: a map of Stormwind City, large enough for everyone to see it without difficulty. The districts were all laid out in color-code, and giant colored thumbtacks were stuck in various places.

It wasn't just a picture of Stormwind, it also held the surrounding area of Elwynn, and there was a distressing number of red thumbtacks on the edges of the map. Sara had a fairly good idea of what was happening, but didn't dare voice her thoughts.

Eventually, by sheer force of will, Calven's clanging caused the roaring crowd to grow quiet. "Settle down, settle down!" he shouted once he could be heard. That was enough to cause complete silence. "Thank you. Now, I've called you all here because of a distressing situation. Stormwind City is going to be attacked by the Legion. Demon forces have broken through Darkshire and are enroute to the city as we speak. The villages in the path have been evacuated and Stormwind's civilians are emptying as we speak, but by now the Legion has probably finished stomping down Goldshire. We'll be coordinating closely with the greater Alliance military, so we'll all have to just shut up and do as we're told."

Sara's heart jumped into her throat. The Alliance military. The same organization she deliberately deserted to go traipsing around in Ulduar. Suddenly the idea of going up north to help the Dragonflights - as much as she disliked dragons - was looking _very_ appealing. She'd even get a power boost from being in Northrend, atop her old body. She just hoped the military in Stormwind wouldn't look too closely at her...

Calven continued. "Current estimates place the Legion at arriving here, here, and here," he explained, placing giant red thumbtacks at several points right outside Stormwind. "Choke point at the bridge for the frontal assault is well stocked, but they're short on casters. Those who will be reporting to Major Grambell are as follows." He took out a sheet of paper and began listing names that Sara had come to associate with various mages, warlocks, and so forth.

Among them was her name. Apparently she was going to be holding against the main onslaught. Good. She had some new spells designed specially for entrenching...

Calven kept listing other Legion motions and the steps they were taking to oppose them. Most of it went over her head. Things about positioning, the angle of the sun, and various resources Stormwind City had at its disposal. Sara was happy to leave it to someone who understood military strategy. She did understand that there were several locations they feared the Legion would drop infernals, and teams were to be deployed to those locations to deal with them behind the front lines. Leira was among them, while other groups were going to attack the demons' portals and infernal stores directly.

"One last thing I want to mention. In addition to a pit lord, intel has confirmed that the eredar lord Talgath is leading this strike at Stormwind. Should you come across him, do _not_ engage. Retreat and report his location, but do not engage. Talgath is red skinned, and should be taller than the lesser eredar that've been sighted. Now, we've still some time before we're slated to go out! I want bombs gathered and transported, potions and flasks ready for distribution at the portal, some good hearty meals. If you need any enchants, gems, whatever, get it done _now!_ This message only came in recently, so as of now we all leave in five hours. Dismissed!"

The rapturous, silent attention everyone paid him burst like a bubble. While the wall of noise washed over the halls, Sara bolted out.

She reached the armory in record time and threw open the chest given specifically to her. Nobody else was there yet, but she could hear people approaching. Her headband went on right away, as did her gloves and boots. Her robes, belt, staff, and so forth she gathered up in her arms and then she ran to her room. She tossed open the door with a foot and closed it behind her the same way.

The brown headband already made her mind race, letting her spells be cast even faster. The purple gloves and boots deepened her mana pool and let her body channel more magic into each spell, and the shards of saronite - cut to look like gems - in the gloves resonated with her very soul to make her stronger still.

Her robes were wonderful. Dark like the deep sea with patterns of twisted seaweed woven into it. It fit snugly over her body, warm and soft like a well-made bed, to say nothing of how the magical threads amplified her powers even further. Then her belt came on, and then the various bits of jewelry. Last of all was her staff, long and twisted, with a purple tendril wrapped around the top and a spellpower enchantment along its length.

It all fit her perfectly.

Once she was fully geared, Sara stood up straight and took a deep, shaky breath.

Elwynn Forest. The Burning Legion had made it to Elwynn Forest. And Talgath the Inexorable was leading them. She didn't know much about him, but she did know some things.

He was one of the more powerful eredar lords. From the texts at the academy she'd learned he was put in charge by Kil'jaeden himself to hunt down the draenei. From reading the dreadlord's mind in Grim Batol, she knew he was the one trying to recruit her into the Legion. _He_ was the one who was responsible for filling her head with so much armageddon and flame. She was going to Stormwind. He was going to Stormwind.

And if someone didn't beat her to it? She was going to bury him in Stormwind.

She still had some time, and she had plenty of liquid saronite from her trips to the guild bank. Sara had been entertaining some major glyphs for her to use on her spells, and ever since Grim Batol she'd managed to get a good idea in her head of how to do them. Sara flew into her seat and got to work.

It wasn't smooth work. She kept being interrupted by someone to get one more souleater enchantment, one more Old God glyph, one more something. In between that, however, she managed to squeeze out three glyphs for her personal use, and applied them. No time to check them over for any errors though, so she'd just have to hope she got it right on the first try.

The first was a glyph for her psychosis beam. She didn't know how many demons she'd be up against, but she needed some effective way to hit multiple targets. Adding a 'forking' effect to the spell would accomplish that well.

The second would affect the brain link spell. It'd cost more mana, but she had mana to spare. In return, the targets being close to one another would only diminish the spell's effect, instead of removing it entirely.

And lastly, one to affect her bouncing malady. It wouldn't horrify the victims into screaming and fleeing, but instead of jumping to one target it would jump to two, resulting in a chain reaction.

These were all effects Yogg-Saron could've done with more power. When it tried to escape Ulduar, it didn't have the power to make the additional effects happen, and Sara didn't have the power _or_ the skill. But she could rely on the glyphs as crutches just this once.

By the time Sara had gotten her trio of glyphs done, everyone else who needed something from her had come and gone. Judging by the clock in her room, there were only twenty minutes before departure.

Sara stood in the center of her room, breathing deeply, hands clenched into fists. Stormwind City. The place she had lived for six years. The place she had called home. Even more importantly, it was the capital of the Alliance and if it fell, the consequences would be dire. Her prediction was coming true: Ironforge and Gnomeregan were going to be flanked from the north and south. This was her last chance to actually do something to stop the demons.

She let out a breath and opened her hands, cupping her fingers. From each finger a ray of purple energy shot into the center of her hands, forming a crackling orb of Old God power. Then she clenched her hands into fists, puffing the magic out like smoke.

"I can do this," she told herself, trying to calm her trembling. "I _can_ do this. I am confident, brilliant, and powerful. I can do this." Staff affixed to her back, Sara left her room behind and strode through the guild hall with forced confidence. Crowds pushed past her in organized chaos, shouting for another bar of titanium, or some exotic plant, or to make way so that so-and-so could reach their gear.

Sara pushed past the crowds in return, navigating her way out of the guild hall and into the Military Ward.

"Oh," she whispered.

Apparently it wasn't just her guild going to Stormwind. It was packed, and the glistening light of portals dotted the sea of people. Elves and draenei stuck out like sore thumbs, humans and worgen formed a canopy, while dwarves and gnomes formed holes in the sea of people. The air was filled with the roar of indistinct chatter, people pushed and shoved in seemingly random directions, the entire crowd buzzed with nervous energy. If it weren't that they were all so _close_ to her she would've quite enjoyed the scene.

But she wasn't going to be deterred just by a crowd of idiots. Sara looked for some faces she recognized and shoved her way to them, earning herself a few glares in the process.

Portals to Stormwind filled the Ward, but a casual glance around revealed that each were to slightly different locations in the city to prevent traffic incidents. She finally arrived at a group of casters from her own guild, huddled around one such portal. She recognized two of the faces from her Grim Batol mission, Saynna and Tarod. They were also geared up, staring intently at the portal. Through it, Sara could see the Trade District of Stormwind, with blue roofs and cobble roads. But that was all she could see, because the other side of the portal was unnervingly... empty.

Sara waited. Eventually a gnomish man dressed up in bejeweled mage robes strode into the middle of their little group. He looked absolutely ridiculous; green hair, green eyes, green clothes, green rings, green gems... "Alright, everyone here?" They all murmured assent. "Okay, let's go in then. Follow me, I'll lead you all to where we're going," explained, already waddling towards the portal.

In spite of herself, Sara cracked a grin. Heh. Waddling.

"Single file!" he shouted. "Chimes of A'dal spellcasters, move!" Then the gnome jumped into the portal.

They weren't in a line. They were in a vague, amorphous mob of people trying to funnel itself into a line while crowded by all other subsets of all other guilds in the area, to say nothing of the full-blown military presence. They jostled, they pushed, they backed away and insisted for others to go. Sara was exactly the seventeenth person to step into the portal.

Arcane light wrapped around her and tugged, and suddenly she was _falling_ , then the torrents of arcane magic around her drained from her vision, she lurched upwards, and she arrived in Stormwind.

It felt like a lifetime since she was last in the capital city. Cobblestone streets _thumped_ beneath her shoes. White brick buildings wrapped around her, with wooden signs advertising an inn, or a tailor, or a cook. The clouds were gray and heavy, but featureless, and the air smelled of imminent rain. But it was eerily silent. No crowds huddled around shops. No corner vendors preaching the merits of their wares. No horses clip-clopping through the streets. No buzzing of noise. Nothing to surprise her, keep her guessing. She hated it with a burning passion.

The gnome was already running, leading a line behind him. He was headed south east, towards the gates of Stormwind. Sara followed after them, looking around at the scene ahead. As an afterthought, she snapped her fingers and summoned her barrier. Just in case.

Even from so far away, she could tell the gates were being heavily fortified. Atop the gate's towers were contraptions of metal and wood the size of a drake. She couldn't make it out from her location, but she assumed they were either ballistae or catapults.

There were more people up ahead. Soldiers clad in glistening white armor. Riflemen with their weapons safely stowed. Boxes filled with supplies, everything from ammunition to water. The gnome lead her and the others up a ramp to where the griffon master for Stormwind used to rest. But now he was gone, with not even the scent of bird to mark that he'd ever been here. Instead, hundreds of archers and casters were gathered up at the windows, staring at the bridge leading into Stormwind.

Standing near the corner was who Sara assumed to be Major Grambell. He was a tall man, built like a bear, with short-cut hair the color of a grizzly's. He was dressed head to toe in elaborate armor, painted gold and polished to look like the sun even in dreary environments. His helmet was current resting on the ground by his feet as he shouted orders to various subordinates, telling them to switch places or to move stores of food and water here and there. Sara let her attention wander while the gnome approached him, and found herself staring out the windows.

The entrance to Stormwind was unrecognizable. She could see cauldrons of unknown contents poised to drop down onto approaching demons. The bridge was littered with metal barricades, which were barbed on all ends. The water around the bridge wasn't drained, though if she looked closely she thought she saw something moving under the surface. Even the statues of various heroes were cracked at the base, though it wouldn't be visible from the front. Sara could only wonder what signal would make them topple onto the demons.

At the gates, soldiers clad in armor were ready with colossal shields. Marksman were higher up for good aim. At the windows, such as where Sara was, spellcasters and archers huddled behind metal barriers, ready to send fire and fury screaming down at the bridge and then duck behind cover.

It was an impressive defense. It was a good defense. It might even be a good _enough_ defense, especially if strike teams were already looking to sabotage the Legion camps.

Orders were shouted, and Sara was jostled into place between two mages of no importance. She focused her attention on the gates, then beyond them.

There was smoke in the distance. Putrid and black, rising from an unseen location and blending seamlessly into the clouds. She judged the smoke - and with it, the demons - was a few hours away, but it'd be getting closer and closer with each passing minute. Hundreds, thousands, even millions of demons would come pouring into Stormwind in an attempt to raze it to the ground. She could only imagine the damage they'd done to the rest of Elwynn. And even if they could hold off the lesser demons individually, quantity had a certain quality of its own.

To say nothing of Talgath himself. Sara had to admit, just the thought of him being here made her guts tighten with worry. He was strong. One of the most powerful eredar. She was strong, and she wasn't the only one here, but could they even beat him?

...

... no, that was absurd. Of course they could. They were going to win. _This_ was the battle where everything turned around.

Potions were handed out, and Sara attached a few of them to her waist. Then fish fillets, perfectly cooked and seasoned with northern spices, were distributed to eat, filling Sara's stomach. And lastly, flasks of all kinds were divided among all soldiers. Sara's was a smooth vial filled with orange fluid, surprisingly warm to the touch, like concentrated sunlight.

"Power up!" someone shouted. She glanced around; flashes of magic radiated around the melee soldiers, the sharp shooters, and made their way down the line of casters towards her. This time, Sara was ready. She steeled herself as a series of nature, holy, and even elemental power surrounded her. After the momentary pain and discomfort, she relished in the power running through her veins.

Orders were being shouted. She didn't need to pay much attention to understand what her purpose here was. Kill everything that tried to get in the city.

Her flask, she'd save until demons showed up. Sara knelt behind the raised metal barrier and ran a hand along its stainless steel surface. It was cold, like snow. Her legs burned, but she didn't need to move around anymore. There were no demons yet, but she was as prepared as possible. All she could do now was take deep, calming breaths to steady her nerves until the enemy arrived.

Sara was ready to defend Stormwind City.


	30. Chapter 29: Alone in the Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Sara

  


Some of the books Sara read described the wait before a great battle as being worse than the actual battle. Granted the battles themselves just looked exciting instead of horrible, but she understood the idea.

But even now, crouched behind a metal barrier with hundreds of other ranged defenders by her side, Sara still didn't agree.

Her eyes were trained on the gates, and excited energy bubbled in her chest. It was the same feeling she got when she was a kid, going to the park. It was the same feeling she got when she saw an animal to _play_ with. It was the eagerness, the anticipation, of getting to hurt someone. And nobody was going to look down on her for it.

It took hours for the first appearance. There wasn't any needling attack. Instead, the first things to appear were floating embers of green. Eyes of Kilrogg, _scouts._

They were too far for her to shoot them with any degree of accuracy, though apparently that didn't stop some of the marksmen from trying. And to their credit, a few of the dozen eyes burst into cinders. The scouts retreated after they got a good look at their defenses, and then the waiting began again.

_BOOM!_

Sara blinked at a flash of fire outside the gates. A moment later there was another explosion, and then another.

Apparently someone had planted mines outside the gates. But who was triggering them?

A few explosions later, she saw who. Among the empowerments placed on her was a spell to detect invisibility. The group of a dozen succubi must've thought they were being sooo clever, weaving their way between the metal barricades under cover of magic. At least until they were riddled with spells, arrows, and bullets and dropped dead.

Sara hadn't launched anything at them, but her hands did start to drip with foul magic. _Soon,_ she assured herself, downing the warm, tasteless flask. _So very, very soon._

Then from her side there was a cacophony of wood and metal colliding against each other. Streaks of silver and orbs of black sailed over Sara's head, nearly too fast to keep track of, and landed outside the gates. The catapults and ballistae noisily reloaded and, just as noisily, fired again. And again. And again, at an enemy so far away Sara couldn't even see it yet.

But the smoke clouds _were_ a lot closer than they were hours ago.

She tensed, baring her teeth. _Come on,_ she thought. _Just come a little closer..._

As if summoned by her thoughts, the Burning Legion appeared.

They didn't start off slow. They didn't send in weak groups and ramp it up, letting them get used to the increasing assault. The Legion's full force came down on them seemingly all at once.

Doomguards took to the air and flanked around them, falling by the dozens to arrows and spells. Felguards charged forward with their axes ready, and to Sara's horror she saw shivarra behind each line, waving their six arms to conjure forth frantic defensive spells. Gan'arg hung out in the back, placing down fel cannons to slowly advance the Legion's territory. Wrathguards slammed the ground and sent forth a wave of flame to clear aside barricades. The clouds went from gray to black, and far behind the demon lines Sara saw streaks of toxic green fly into the sky, and the city behind her thundered as the meteors fell.

But they were holding.

Streams of projectiles shot from the city windows at all angles. Sara's own magic boiled within her, up her arms, and out in the form of jagged purple lightning, second after second. Alongside her attacks were fireballs, shadow bolts, frost bolts, poison tipped arrows, arcane missiles, the wrath of nature, balls of lava, beams of mind-flaying darkness, and everything in between. The gan'arg at the entrance finished setting up their fel cannons and advanced, only for the cauldrons atop the city gates to plummet. Burning oil, goblin bombs and more burst out from them, forming a crater in the demons' ranks. More importantly, it destroyed the gan'arg and their creations before they could take a single shot.

The demons kept coming.

The metal barricades were slowing them down, but they were easy for the supernaturally strong demons to shove aside. Hunter traps flew out into the middle of their ranks, laying down ice, fire, or even summoning venomous snakes to bite and tear. Concussive spells blasted into their ranks and sent demons flying off the bridge into the water below, which came alive as frenzy fish devoured their prey. The light around Sara's hands grew in intensity, from Old God purple to death green, and every spell felt like razor blades scraping along her bones. But the pain didn't matter, because each psychosis blast was one or even two demons sent back to the nether.

The statues creaked and tumbled in slow motion. The demons didn't look up in comic horror as they were crushed. Instead they dove out of the way, sometimes shoving their companions into the bloody waters below. Shivarra and dreadlords shoved the rubble aside with spell and strength. Magic attacks were returned afterwards. Laughing skulls of darkness, shifting rivers of flame, chaotic green dragon heads and more snaked their way up from the advancing demons towards the windows.

Sara couldn't care less what the Legion threw at them since she was invulnerable. Others had to duck below the barricade, or cleanse undodgeable curses, or put out the fires erupting around them, but she could stay up and keep blasting with impunity, especially as the complex network of beneficial spells restored her mana faster than even she could expend it. But then the first of the eredar appeared.

The men were shirtless and the women nearly so. Their skin varied in tones of gray and flame, but all of them wore elaborate jewelry, all of their eyes burned, and all of seven of them raised their hands as one and formed a single colossal orb of darkness above them.

"Oh shit," Sara muttered, aiming a malady of the mind at them. The black and green skull flew through the air unopposed and hit an eredar woman right in the head. She grunted, but didn't go running off screaming. That was fine, in a moment it would split to two...

... it only jumped to one of the eredar. _That_ glyph was a dud.

She didn't have more time to ponder it, because then their spell was complete. Even worse, it wasn't offensive.

The black orb ballooned outwards in the form of dense fog, washing over the bridge and spilling over into the water. The felguards vanished. The swarming imps vanished, _everything_ was swallowed up in an impenetrable miasma that extended all the way to the melee soldiers. Clever plan. They all kept firing blindly into the darkness, but Sara knew what was about to happen.

The soldiers did too. They raised their shields and readied their spears, and then the felguards burst from the darkness. Bolts of fire and shadow flew from the fog. The soldiers fought back, stabbing and blocking while covering fire descended upon the demons and healing spells mended their wounds.

"Areas!" someone called. "Close and back up!"

There was a lull in the casting as everyone prepared, including Sara.

Then hell broke loose on the bridge.

Lightning blasted down from the dark clouds. Pillars of flame exploded from beneath and blew away the clouds. Seeds of corruption detonated with blinding darkness. Fire and ice rained from the heavens. Sara's contribution was to create an orb of concentrated death magic and send it to hover halfway across the moat. The shimmering sphere of mist did nothing for a moment, but then it unleashed four beams of emerald lightning at the front of the demons' advance.

The area spells - and her death rays - began to advance backwards, sweeping up the demons as they went. Some got through, leaping over fiery cracks and dodging between hurricane strikes, but they were always swept up by some sharpshooter. Eventually, the call came:

"Stop areas!"

And they stopped. Just as well, Sara's death rays ran out of magic just then and she resumed launching maladies and psychosis rays at the desperately advancing demons.

Then the fel cannons, built up at the gate under cover of darkness, fired.

Sara didn't think much of fel cannons. Dozens of them hadn't stopped her charge in Hilsbrad. The ones in Grim Batol couldn't land a scratch on her. Her experience with them just painted them as utterly unimpressive. It was an assumption she was _quickly_ disabused of.

Thunder crashed in her ears as the fel fireballs flew through the window. Greasy flame with toxic smoke spread like wildfire across a small patch of floor and quickly stopped. Mages and shamans broke away from their onslaught to try and put it out, but water could only do so much for demonfire. Even behind her shield Sara's nose was treated to the smell of rotten eggs. Half of the metal barriers, unhinged by the shock waves, fell into the waters below, taking with them anyone unfortunate enough to be holding on at the time.

Then the second volley came.

"Oh come on!" she shouted as the others around her fell, and redoubled her efforts. She summoned another death orb and _this_ time she made sure to aim it at the cannons and their builders. But it was too late. The ranged attackers around her had mostly fallen to the cannons' inexplicable power, and now the demons' armies were free to engage the front lines.

Then a brick fell on her shield.

Sara glanced up and nearly shouted in disbelief. A doomguard. On the ceiling. Using his barbed sword to _break the ceiling._ Then she jerked herself backwards because the spreading felfire had eaten away the wooden floor beneath her feet, leaving only stone. Then she changed her aim and blasted the intrusive demon to kingdom come. The few ranged allies still in sight of her noticed, _and then they were screaming_ because the felflames spread to them. Then they jumped out into the water. Then the frenzy fish ate them.

Three more bricks fell, and a doomguard landed in the room dramatically. His wings flared out and blew away the green fire. He looked down for a moment, bracing himself, then looked up at Sara and snarled at her with his ugly demon face. Since he was so close, she had _excellent_ aim. Her psychosis ray got him right in the head, and not only did he burst into a puff of purple smoke, but when he reformed in the nether his grip on sanity would be just a bit more unsteady.

The next doomguard fell, and then the next and the next _and the next._ Sara couldn't help the armies down below anymore because the ceiling was gone, flying demons were coming with impunity, and Sara couldn't do anything but fend them off, or adjust her footing as the fel cannons continued to blast the land she stood on. Finally, when her foot slipped too close to the edge, she gave up. There was nothing to be accomplished here. Sara crossed both arms near her chest, gathered her power, then threw her arms back and unleashed a shadow nova. The darkness ate up the felflames and destroyed the demons, but more were going to come. They wouldn't find her, though.

She was going to the front lines.

The stairs were gone, replaced by a slope of charred bricks that she slid down. Deafening thuds shook the world around her, threatening to send Sara to the ground with each barrage, but she got to ground level in no time. She circled around to the front lines _just_ in time to get the privilege of watching them crumble.

Bodies littered the ground, bleeding and dead. Some were burned. Some just had the life stricken from them by shadow magic. But all of the spear-and-shield wielders, all the shooters, all their healers, and presumably all the operators of the heavy weapons up top, were dead. She was practically walking across a floor of corpses, and got to stare straight down the barrel of the Legion.

Just like in Grim Batol.

And hey! If everyone was dead? She wouldn't need to worry about friendly fire anymore.

Sara roared and sent a cresting wave of darkness over the demons, blasting them back and buying herself some breathing room. She sent a malady in to ricochet among their ranks. They were so tightly grouped she'd be amazed if it ever stopped bouncing. Then she held up her left hand and began unleashing her magic.

There were so many demons of all types, nearly tripping over themselves to get at her, that Sara couldn't possibly miss. Psychosis spells to deal with the felguards, wrathguards, and shivarra, and thanks to her glyph the dark lightning splintered off to strike two or three more enemies. Shadow novas to dispatch the swarms of imps, or just whenever the Legion got too close. Death rays blasted at the army from overhead, scything across their ranks. Some doomguards and terrorguards were still trying to fly past her, but brain links to distant enemies would tear their minds apart before they could do anything about it. Axes _thunked_ off her barrier. Curses slid off it. Firebolts pelted against it like rain. Sara blasted and blasted, but there were always more. So many more.

 _Time to break out the new stuff,_ she thought. Extending her left hand, she sent a wave of raw magic forward, clearing out a section of the bridge. It'd take a while for the demons to approach again, which gave her plenty of time to set up the newest spell in her arsenal. Magic condensed and formed into a matrix, and then she shot the small orb at the bridge. It impacted and rose atop a river of everflowing shadows, taking the form of a cackling, maniacal lunatic skull.

It did nothing to Sara, but the demons' reactions were immediate. The approaching line of wrathguards roared and swung their axes blindly, sending waves of fire towards her and the skull, but her shield was impenetrable and the skull was little more than a construct of magic and madness. Any demon looking anywhere near the lunatic skull screamed and frothed at the mouth and, eventually, went still and blew away into the wind.

The advancing waves pushed Sara back, and she bumped into a wall.

 _More,_ she thought. _I need more!_

The effect'd be stronger if it was centered on herself. She clenched her fists and summoned the same corrosive, sanity-eating effect on herself. Rows upon rows of demons screamed and turned to vapor or, in the case of the more sturdy shivarra and terrorguards, they turned on their fellow demons and sliced them apart with their many blades before being felled.

After a few seconds, Sara couldn't sustain the effect anymore and returned to her standard rotation of spells, pushing more and more magic through her veins to force the Legion back, so much magic that the corners of her vision were tinted with orange light.

She stepped forward.

Another lunatic skull appeared across from the first, adding to its effect.

Sara's breaths came in heaving pants. Every drop of her mana was precious, but there were _so many demons_ that even conserving as much as she could, tailoring her spells to be no stronger than they needed to be, she found herself running out alarmingly fast. And then the dreadlords and eredar made their reappearance.

It was one each. The dreadlord's armor and wings were putrid green, and the eredar man's skin was the color of ash. The dreadlord waved a hand and a blast of carrion magic washed over her shield. The eredar, ignoring the lesser demons teeming around him, held out a hand for the nathrezim to stop. Then with a flash of arcane light, the eredar dispelled her shield.

Sara's eyes went wide in horror and she jerked herself to the side. Not a moment too soon, as an observer's red eye beam sliced through the location her head had been just a moment ago. Something thin and gray, moving too fast for her eyes to track, darted to her in an instant. Pain blossomed along her right leg, and even as she resummoned her shield she looked down and wrenched the arrow out of her thigh.

Then she snarled and conjured a death orb. "Come on!" she growled, directing all four of its rays at the eredar. His fire spell was interrupted catastrophically, sending those around him flying off into the infested waters. A third lunatic skull, a few directed blasts of psychosis and one or two lucky bounces from mind maladies dealt with the dreadlord.

Sara sent another blast of shadow magic forward and limped with it to gain ground. At the same time her right hand fished out a health potion and raised it to her lips. It tasted no better than a mana potion, but she chugged it and felt the bloody hole in her leg seal up. Then, as an afterthought, another mana potion to keep her going.

A squadron of felhounds approached, their bestial forms tapping across the ground, snarling and biting. The closest one extended its antennae at her... and her shield vanished again. The demon burped.

 _Oh come on!_ She unstrapped her staff from her back and, as the closest felhound leaped at her, swung the head at it with all her might. Sara wasn't particularly strong, but training in Ironforge had granted her _some_ muscle. The felhound yelped and flew off the bridge. Sara's muscles ached under the force, but she swung again, and then again, all while frantically dodging and resummoning her shield as fast as the felhounds ate it. She was forced back to the entrance to Stormwind, but finally the felhounds were dealt with. Then she resumed her normal spells and pushed forward.

She reached the halfway point of the bridge soon enough. Her eyes burned, casting the world in brilliant orange light. Each demon blown up made her head clear. Each one she brutally murdered lifted weight off her shoulders. They all blended together. Sometimes different breeds came. Dreadsteeds. Void terrors. Eredar and dreadlords. It all flowed into an endless orchestra of violence, and the fel cannons couldn't fire at her without causing _massive_ friendly fire. Occasionally a demon powerful enough to dispel her barrier showed up and she took a few hits, but it was nothing one of her health potions couldn't fix. If she focused, she could've sworn the number of demons was slightly lesser than before. Sara was doing it. She was forcing them back all on her own.

"I can fight," she breathed. "I can fight all of you!" she shouted. She brought her hands together and began to radiate death and disunity, forcing the demons to look away lest she fry their minds. They were cowering before her. They were _afraid_ of her and the sheer concept of the demons being afraid to march in her direction made unhinged laughter explode from her lungs. "Hoohahahahahahaha, AAAAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahaha!"

Then the pit lord appeared.

It was like the annihilian that had assaulted Nethergarde. Maybe it _was_ the same one, but this one's hide bore many more scars and holes than the one in the Blasted Lands. The double ended glaive in his hands smoldered with demonfire, and his nostrils expelled smoke. He squeezed himself between the gates, forcibly widening them, and snarled down at Sara as she dispatched the last few demons. Behind the pit lord, she could see legions upon legions of demons gathering.

"You idiots!" he snarled. "Can't even kill a single mortal!" He dropped his glaive to the ground and lowered his arms. Bright purple fire burned along his talons and up his arms as he stomped from side to side. "Watch and learn!" The pit lord threw his hands up while Sara debated on what to do about him, and then a chill ran down her spine.

She glanced up. There, in spite of her shadowy barrier, was a blue skull and crossbones.

She only had limited time. Think think think. She didn't know how much it would take to kill the pit lord, and she needed every drop of mana she could spare since she was on her last mana potion... _wait, idea!_

Her magic coiled along her arms and wrapped around the annihilan's head just as he was picking up his glaive. "Grah! What are... you... "

Mind controlling the pit lord was easy. He was a seething cauldron of rage and aggression, every mental line devoted to finding something to kill and then killing it. All Sara had to do was rewire the pit lord a tad and he'd realize that right behind him were thousands of demons he could _easily_ take out his aggression on.

Sara relaxed her magic. The pit lord stared at her, unblinking, for a moment. Then he roared, turned around, and swiped his glaive across the demons with a cackle. Just in time, because then the skull above her head vanished and Sara died.

It wasn't like the curse of doom in Northrend, which attempted to stop her heart. Sara was alive, and then she simply wasn't. Her soul emerged instantly, watching her body crumple to the ground like a limp doll. The staff clattered off her back and into the waters below, prompting her to curse.

Her soul was in the shape of her human body, but completely purple, so dark it was nearly black. Shadowy streaks whirled across her soul like she was a tornado, desperate to expand from its present form. She didn't pay that any attention though. Sara steeled herself and began summoning her magic again. Her soul's hands glowed and death energy began to flow off her corpse. Sara's soul began to lower, descending into her body at a painfully slow rate. Then she was inside again, and with an internal shout she finished resurrecting herself.

Her eyes snapped open and she instantly got on her feet... just to collapse again. The pit lord was still massacring his former allies with blade and flame, so she had some time to figure out what was going on. She was alive again, that much was for certain. She summoned her shield and downed her last mana potion, but even then she didn't have enough magic to resurrect herself a second time.

The next time she died, it would be for real.

Sara tried to stand again, but her legs erupted into a fountain of agony and she fell again.

"Damn it," she whispered. Alright, standing was out. Sara desperately rifled through Yogg-Saron's memories. "Levitation spell, levitation spell... aha!" She cast it. "Whoa!" Her body lurched into the air. Sara flailed around her a moment before righting herself. It was... strange. Her feet hovered a yard above the ground, but it didn't feel like anything was _suspending_ her. But there wasn't anything she was standing on either. If she didn't have anything to focus on she'd probably get motion sick before long.

Turning her attention back to the fight, she realized the pit lord was doing good work. The fel cannons were smashed under his feet and the walking engine of destruction pushed the demons _out of Stormwind._ But he could use some help, couldn't he? Sara extended her magic into his tainted soul and let it unravel, let it consume the fel and replace it with the corruption of the Old Gods. The green webbing of his wings turned black, and purple streaks grew along his scales like fungus. The mane of fire going down the pit lord's back turned bright violet, and now each time he swung his glaive a shockwave of shadow magic billowed outwards from it.

She relaxed, breathing heavily, her vision blurred and alight with orange. Sara had actually done it! The invasion wasn't over, of course, but now she could take a moment to rest. Or so she thought.

A towering eredar, as tall as the pit lord, appeared before the annihilan with a flash of teleportation. Sara inspected him curiously as he snarled, red arms bulging with muscle. "Argolash, what is the MEANING of this?!" he demanded.

The newly christened 'Argolash' roared and charged at the eredar lord, but he simply grabbed the annihilan and, with a pulse of magic, threw him back into Stormwind. Sara had to float backwards as the demon crashed onto the bridge, making it heave. The corrupted pit lord righted himself, but by then the eredar - _Talgath, that has to be Talgath -_ had his hands up and was busy weaving a shadow spell. Sara couldn't interrupt it in time, so it was cast before long. The world turned red and an intense chill washed over her entire body. From Talgath's hands a blinding burst of crimson light, so intense as to be nearly white, lanced out and into the pit lord.

Argolash's glaive dropped into the moat below and he reared up on his hind legs, roaring and thrashing his muscular tail. Brilliant purple cracks spread along the pit lord’s body, and Sara had to shield her eyes as the light grew brighter and brighter, before flashing intensely. When she looked again the pit lord was gone, with only a deep crater marking where he once stood.

Talgath stared down at her. She stared back at him. He snarled, narrowed his sulfurous eyes, then blinked in surprise. "It's you," he rumbled.

"It's me," she confirmed. Then Sara summoned her magic, and began.

* * *

Leira

  


With a heave of effort, she leaped at the towering infernal. Her sword and axe came down on its left arm, and while the jolt of attacking solid stone rattled her and the scorching heat singed her skin, she didn't let that bother her. Her momentum carried her forward and detached the infernal's left arm. That was the last straw: the felfire animating it winked out and it collapsed into a pile of boulders.

One down, seven to go.

_WHUM-KABOOM!_

Eight to go.

Luckily, Leira wasn't alone. Running all around the Cathedral Square with her were... she didn't even know anymore, but they were soldiers and they were helping. Infernal meteors fell like hail all around the city, so many more and so much more widespread than they had accounted for. The Mage Quarter was a crater and the Park was ablaze. Leira didn't know how things were holding up by the gates, but even with Sara there she had her doubts.

But doubts wouldn't kill infernals. She and her group of assorted fighters charged at the nearest infernal and tore it up in seconds. But there were just too many of them, and they were forced back to the Cathedral of Light.

The Cathedral had seen _much_ better days. The spire had toppled off and craters were blown through it like Alterac Swiss. Within, teams of mages had set up portals to Ironforge and they were all evacuating. Not Leira's team though. Their mission was to buy as much time as possible, and _then_ go back through the portal.

A dark blur crossed the edge of her vision and Leira spared a glance in its direction. Of all things, it was a _black drake,_ breathing a river of molten rock over an infernal. On the adolescent dragon's back, strapped to a saddle and harness, was King Anduin. His robes were dirtied and his staff cracked, but even so he was radiant and powerful, sending out bolts of the Holy Light to fall upon infernals and burn, or fall upon her and heal.

"Keep going!" the king shouted. "The evacuation is almost complete!" Then the black drake took off, and the king was gone from sight.

The clouds were dark, but the raging fires painted the sky brilliant orange. Smoke poured into the heavens. It had been that way for hours... and then the world _flashed_ red. A shockwave of dark energy rushed over her... and it was coming from the gates. That wasn't Sara, her magic had a distinct slimy feel that this magic lacked. That meant there was something there. And if anyone could stay alive against that, it'd be Sara. The damn human had literally resurrected herself from the dead. But if she was there...

_WHUM-KABOOM!_

"The gates!" she shouted at her makeshift team, screaming to be heard over the falling meteors. "We have to evacuate the gates too! We've got a mage here right?" One of them, a full member of the army, raised his hand. "Then let's go! We'll make a portal there!"

"What about the Cathedral?" the mage shouted.

Behind them, a trio of infernals smashed through the Cathedral's open roof.

"The Cathedral's lost!" a worgen man in full plate shouted. "Come on, let's look for survivors then get the hell out of here!"

"Right!" she shouted, before pointing her two handed sword southeast. "Let's move!" _Hang in there Sara, I'm coming,_ she thought.

* * *

Sara

  


"COME ON!" she shouted at herself, locked in bitter magical battle with Talgath the Inexorable.

A pair of blue crystals floated beside his head, pulsing each time she cast a spell. Judging by their design they were manaburn shards; whenever someone in their vicinity cast a spell, they would blast them with an intensity proportional to the amount of mana expended. Luckily she was under a shadowy barrier, or she would have roasted herself in seconds.

She unleashed dark lightning from her hands. She sent out maddening maladies, and summoned death orbs with all four rays directed at Talgath. Lunatic skulls, everything she had. But Talgath seemed to take it all in stride.

His hands moved in a flurry, fel energy forming a vortex around them. He blocked her spells and projectiles, deflecting them with his hands. He maneuvered between her death rays no matter what formation she conjured them in, and dispelled her lunatic skulls the moment they formed. Any damage she did to his mind instantly repaired itself; he must have been expecting her. There were no other demons coming so the portals must have been disabled, but it was little comfort to her because Talgath's own terrible magic poured down upon Sara.

It was... humbling to see. She could barely keep her barrier up for ten seconds before Talgath dispelled it. Molten fire pelted the bridge around her, leaving pools of lava she levitated over. Endless curses, rivers of doomfire, shadow and fel magic beyond her imagining rained down around her and it was all she could to do make sure she was invulnerable for it, but between his stoic defenses and the onslaught of spells?

Talgath's plan was all too obvious. He was going to run her out of mana.

 _Think, think think._ As much as she hated to admit it, Talgath's magic was more powerful than her own. Sara glanced around; the bridge was crumbling, cratered and half molten. She needed to retreat and rethink her strategy, and to do that she needed to buy herself time.

Sara floated back from Talgath, now halfway across the bridge. She raised both hands above her head and summoned a death orb. This time, instead of releasing four rays, it concentrated all its power into one beam and sliced it across the bridge. By then, Sara was already floating away.

_Ka-chunk!_

Sara levitated, but even so she was startled by the bridge crumbling beneath her. Vast bricks sloughed off, mortar turned to dust, the entire thing plummeted into the frothing moat below. She barely made it back to the entrance in time, and turned around to face Talgath. He had retreated to the gate of Stormwind, staring down at the chasm thoughtfully.

She raised her voice. "You want Stormwind?!" she shouted, hovering above the bodies of her allies. "Come and get it!" she challenged, summoning a lunatic skull on her position to punctuate her demand. With that done she retreated into the heart of the Trade District.

The Trade District had seen _much_ better days. All around her, buildings were collapsed into rubble, strewn about on the streets. Fires devoured wood, and while there weren't any infernals currently marauding about, she saw their craters and the boulders that made up their bodies. Far off in the distance, streaks of green fell from the dark sky, punctuated by flashes of light as they made landfall. There were... so many of them.

Alright, Talgath was certainly going to find a way past the chasm. Think think think. She was an Old God, right? How could she beat Talgath? His magic was more powerful, so the solution was to fight smarter, not harder.

Mind control. Mind control was out. He had anticipated her mental powers and was shielded against them. It wouldn't have surprised her if he was the one that gave immunity to the succubus a while back.

Ripping out his soul was no good. Eredar souls were just so powerful, and she was so low on mana. Maybe if he was on death's door she could erase him, but just killing an eredar normally would _also_ erase them.

Trying to blast him was out. His defenses were simply too good, his reflexes too honed.

There was one other ability Old Gods possessed. Corruption. Could Sara _corrupt_ Talgath into submission? Or better yet, could she corrupt her surroundings to aid her in defeating him? Or better still, both?

She glanced around. There was nothing else living with her, but she didn't need something to be alive to corrupt it.

"Alright," she told herself. "It's worth a shot." Her magic began to flow, and this time she 'urged' it to wash over _everything_ around her, urged it to twist and corrupt, to defile and reforge in her image. She also 'told' her magic to hurry; Talgath could arrive any second.

Collapsed buildings and slain infernals melted together into purple slop. The bricks were tinted violet. The mortar between bricks stayed gray, but started to bubble and hiss. Tiny tendrils made of cement reached up, growing larger and larger. Cracks widened, and from them shot massive fangs of black stone half as tall as the eredar she planned to kill. In moments, the area around Sara was defiled. The ground she hovered over was colored purple and the mortar seethed like a boiling pot. From it, tentacles half her height reached up and spun idly in the air. The cracks left by rampaging infernals were transformed into colossal barriers. The buildings had all melted down into goop which slowly flowed towards the gates.

That was when Talgath arrived. He came floating over the gates of Stormwind with a platform of rocks at his hooves. Once over solid ground he dismissed them and landed, falling briefly to one knee. His manaburn shards were still in place, but now he sneered openly at her. He approached warily, eying the modified scenery surrounding her.

"You had your chance," he intoned, coming to a stop.

"So did you," she said simply. Then she activated her magic and cast the corruption spell.

It had killed a dreadlord in seconds. Talgath roared as darkness buzzed around him, but a hand gesture from him dispelled the effect. But Sara could see it, she could _feel_ it. A skull on his satchel had turned purple. His soul was ever so slightly corroded. She needed to be careful though. Old God corruption tended to give a lot of power when it wasn't properly controlled and she had hardly ever corrupted anyone so she had no idea what she was doing. Not to mention she was running _dangerously_ low on mana.

Her vision glowed and her hands held miniature emerald suns. Sara's entire body burned with the force of her magic, but she pointed at Talgath and imagined ordering the twisted land to get him.

The goop surged like a tidal wave, rearing up to crash upon Talgath. He made a surprised noise and stepped back, letting it fall at his hooves. But it didn't rest, and instantly it started to rise again. The cement tentacles around Sara waved around aggressively and sent bursts of gray dust flying at Talgath. They coated his broad chest and puffed against his head, eliciting hacking coughs from the eredar. Sara cast the corruption spell again.

Her foe dispelled it instantly, and smashed his fists together. Fire blossomed out from him like a supernova, nearly blinding her. The dust on his body was burnt away and the slime pulling on his hooves withered, blackened. Fire started to rain from the heavens, blasting the area around Sara. It popped against her shield, it left craters in the land, it destroyed her tentacles.

She needed more. So she summoned more.

Old God magic flowed from her like a river. The fireballs that rained onto the ground twisted into miniature fire elementals, which instantly went after Talgath. Tentacles the size of Sara herself rose from the mortar, clawing at Talgath if they were close enough or sending bolts of dust if they weren't. She kept corrupting him directly as he fought, releasing shadow novas to clear away the elementals and agony curses to dispatch the tentacles. His pants turned purple and little threads of corruption traced themselves along his limbs, to his chest... and despite his dispellings, the corruption reached his heart.

Talgath _roared._

From his hands came rivers upon rivers of fire, splitting into hundreds and falling upon the land. The rain of fire ended, so Sara had no more elementals, and the gray tentacles were all shattered. Then Sara's shield vanished and, before she could replace it, Talgath cursed her with agony.

She had dealt with agony curses before. And while this one certainly burned more than any others, it wasn't going to stop her now. She cast the barrier so the pain vanished like a bad memory... and then a meteor of shadow magic crashed upon her.

Sara gasped as her heart nearly froze solid. But Talgath's hands were already weaving another shadow crash, and this time she had the opportunity to see the purple crystals rocket towards her. Sara ducked behind one of the pillars of stone, which shattered under the onslaught.

 _Okay,_ she thought. _So the barrier won't protect me from everything._

She flew behind another pillar, sparing a glance at Talgath in the meantime. The skin above his heart was no longer fiery, but rather dark purple like her magic. It pulsed in tune with the demon's heartbeat, and each time it did it sent lines of taint spreading across his body. He screamed and screamed, but the shadow crashes kept coming.

Sara ducked behind a barrier, then another. She was already so cold and frail from the first one, and she was out of health potions. She had to dodge.

The next one smashed against her shelter, shattering the spire like glass. But Sara was already moving, and Talgath's spells were getting more intense. That meant one of two things: the corruption was getting more intense and making him stronger, or the corruption was getting more intense and he was getting desperate. Either way, she just had to hold on a little longer...

Then she was out of stone barriers, without enough magic to make new ones. So... she had to improvise.

Aiming was hard. There was something in her right eye and something warm dribbling from her nose, but she cast a shadow bolt anyway and aimed it right at the incoming shadow crash. It was somewhat off center, but it still hit. The eredar's missile detonated harmlessly in midair. Meanwhile, Talgath retched and bent over, vomiting blackness onto the ground, and then that blackness came alive and formed spears to try stabbing his shins. He stomped it dead with his hooves and panted heavily, sending out another shadow crash.

This one didn't fly right at Sara. This one went over her head and then arced behind her, so she had to follow it carefully to blow it up. It didn't hit her directly, but it was close enough that her heart stuttered from the shadow magic.

Talgath's body was criss-crossed with trails of corruption now, and if she looked closely she thought she could see something growing out of his back. The left and right manaburn shards splintered and vanished, but he didn't appear to notice. His glowing purple eyes - ha! - narrowed and his hands came up. Massive amounts of shadow magic began to gather and gather and _gather_.

It took Sara two seconds into the cast to realize what it was. The same spell that had instantly killed the pit lord. She didn't think her barrier would protect her from it, so she _had_ to interrupt it. Only problem was, Sara didn't know any spells to interrupt casting. So... she again had to improvise.

Her arms shook and using magic was like getting blood from a stone, but she reached into the eredar's mind. There was a forest of mental lines, and she raked her power through all of them. Talgath's spell fizzled out and he went still, his jaw slack... but then demon magic repaired the lines and he was back to normal.

A tentacle burst from his back and hit him in the back of the head with a shadow bolt.

Sara wasn't even floating anymore, her levitation spell had run out and now she sat helplessly on the ground. Talgath flailed his arms wildly and shot a shadow crash into the sky, then another one at her. But all she had to do for that one was lie down, and it passed harmlessly above her body. The eredar's body was more purple than red at this point, and Sara could _feel_ his soul being riddled with holes. He fell to his knees as more tendrils exploded from his body, each of them assaulting him with dark skulls. He toppled forward and crushed the two on his chest, but three more appeared on the back of his legs. He forced his head up, clawing at the ground, and glared at her.

"What... are you?" he snarled.

With the absolute last of her magic, without even a shadowy barrier remaining, Sara extended a dark green beam into the eredar and lifted. His body began to twitch, and above him the green outline of an uncorrupted eredar appeared, but despite the healthy appearance it was filled with gaping holes. Still, the soul was intact enough to clutch its throat and glare hatefully down at her.

"I'm the Old God of Death," she answered, before smashing the soul into the ground and watching it shatter with a wailing howl. Each individual piece of Talgath's soul went their separate way, and disappeared into nothingness.

Talgath the Inexorable was dead.

Sara collapsed on her back, breaths quick and shallow. She could see the clouds, black and putrid, and from them infernals continued to fall elsewhere in the city. _Whum, whum, whum._

"Holy shit!" she heard a familiar voice shout. Sara rolled her head over and, to her surprise, there was Leira, fully armored and weaponized. "Sara you're alive!"

"Hey yourself," Sara whispered as the draenei ran over. "What're you doing here? I thought you were hunting infernals," she muttered, her head spinning awfully.

"By the Light, let’s get you cleaned up." A cold, grimy gauntlet went over Sara's head and wiped something out of her eyes. "Here, let me just..." Something tore, and then there was a bandage being wrapped around Sara's forehead. "Come on, we're evacuating the city."

"But... I killed him," she explained. "He's dead."

She saw Leira look over at the massive, defiled eredar lying in the Trade District. "Holy shit. It doesn't matter though! Infernals are coming down hard, we're getting out of here. Everyone else has already evacuated through the Cathedral and Deeprun Tram's being collapsed. I've got a mage not too far from here, come on. Let's go."

"Leira," she croaked as the draenei stood. "Leira, I can't walk and I am _completely_ out of mana."

Her friend swore. "Alright, then let's try this!" Armored arms went underneath Sara, and she nearly threw up as she was lifted into the air and slung over Leira's shoulders, facing back. "When did you get so heavy?" the warrior joked.

"Shut up," she said halfheartedly. Void, why was everything _spinning?_

"Yeah yeah, come on." Then Leira was running and Sara really _did_ throw up, all over her armor and weapons too.

She jostled up and down, left and right, and every second it felt like she'd fall off and crash to the stone. Everything was blurred and spinning around so fast. Soon she heard voices, only one of them familiar, and she tried to tell them off but her throat was too parched. The distant _whum whum whum_ was deafening, and then she was surrounded by arcane light. Sara fell, faster and faster, then she _lurched_ up. The world transformed into earthy browns and toasty oranges. Then everything did cartwheels and she passed out.

* * *

Zelfan

  


Everything was complete.

While Lord Talgath and his army were off distracting the mortals by invading Stormwind, Zelfan and his underlings had cleaned out Karazhan. The mortals had no clue they were there. They had been _extremely quiet._ His people, the gan'arg, moved quietly and stealthily when they had to and the environment of Deadwind Pass lent their coloration to camouflage.

Karazhan was already a hollow shell of its former self when they arrived, and the few remaining ghosts, going about their once-duties in backstage corridors, were disintegrated easily enough by fel beams or muscular demon brutes. With the musclebound demons clearing a way forward, it gave Zelfan and his minions ample opportunity to clean out Karazhan's opera hall.

The wooden benches, rotten with age and disuse, were overturned and incinerated, ashes swept aside. The cracked marble floors turned black and putrid under the presence of the lesser eredar and nathrezim. The glorious red curtains and gold frills of the theater itself were torn to ribbons by Zelfan's own claws. Rafters were shattered to rubble, and the ghostly audience was reduced to so much ectoplasm.

Then the REAL work could begin.

On his march to Stormwind, Talgath had intentionally left a line of portals for this very purpose. Raw materials from thousands of sterile and sterilized worlds were imported to Karazhan via a portal in the stables. Zelfan and his engineers put their skills to work, manipulating the dark metal into claws, hooks, furnaces, power sources. Hoops, rings, until the shattered opera stage was nothing more than a colossal circular portal, upright, for the Legion to use.

Putting one last twist to tighten a bolt, Zelfan stepped back and wiped his diminutive gan'arg hand across his forehead. Finally. Everything was complete. He cupped a mouth to his hand and shouted to the other side of the room, "Pull the lever!"

Another gan'arg, shorter than even Zelfan, reached out a grubby hand and grabbed a neon green lever. With a tug it went down, and the portal began to hum.

Everyone stepped away from the portal, jumping across the stage's gap to land in the blackened audience theater. The giant circular contraption began to hum, fel energy glowing within its frame, swirling around its perimeter. The giant hole in the middle flashed. Three balls of green mist flew together into the center and _exploded._ Then the portal was open, like a black hole with no gravity. Zelfan could see the infinite expanse of the Twisting Nether beyond, speckled with stars and flowing streaks of mana. The portal hummed and whirred, and then the gray outline of a figure appeared on the other side. The figure lifted a leg and moved it forward.

From the portal, a red leg that ended in a massive hoof crashed onto the ground, shattering the marble tiles.

The other hoof came out a moment later. Following it was a broad torso with a golden amulet over it. Hands that ended in claws larger than a felguard. A head locked in a perpetual scowl with solar eyes. Then lastly came two enormous dragon wings. The right one stretched out to the side and relaxed, only for the left wing to do the same. The eredar looked around at Karazhan, at Zelfan and his underlings, and grinned.

Lord Kil'jaeden had arrived.


	31. Chapter 30: Last Straw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Kil'jaeden

He knelt in Durotar. Like his brother Archimonde did many years ago, Kil'jaeden's claws traced lines in the sand. An acrid wind blew over him, rustling his facial tendrils, but nothing would so much as warrant his irritation.

He growled low in his throat, refreshing the veil of invisibility over him. Before him was the Horde capital, Orgrimmar, in all its defiant 'glory'. And today, it would come crashing down as a firm reminder to the mortals of this world as to just how little time they had left.

His claw made a few more marks in the desert, and then he stopped. Satisfied, the Deceiver stood and gently flexed his wings, inspecting the runes he'd drawn into the sand. He lifted his left hand and clenched, summoning his vast, Titan-given powers. The ground heaved and trembled in agony, sand spilling upwards into a scale model of the city before him.

Kil'jaeden spoke in Eredun, his voice low and guttural as he inspected the model for any inaccuracies.

"They have grown fat," he mused to himself. "Fat and spoiled, believing themselves mighty and unconquerable. A single skilled guild and they claim their planet unbreakable." Kil'jaeden huffed. "A lich, brittle and cold, and they claim him a lord. A night elf with a sliver of my former servant's power, and they see him as king of the broken Draenor. A human imbued with a fraction of my powers, and they claim him a scourge upon the world. Elementals that have grown sloppy. Crippled gods. Lizards given powers by the _lesser_ Titans."

There were no imperfections in his model, as was expected. He poked the gates of his construction, and the real Orgrimmar's metal barricade dented with a horrific shriek. "These conquests and they see themselves indestructible. They dream they will repel us, then march upon Argus and eradicate us." Kil'jaeden scowled, baring his fangs, and loomed over the animated sand. In what was to come, millions would die by his hand. In the weeks to come, countless more would follow. "Their hopes, I'll shatter. Their dreams of conquest, I'll destroy."

Kil'jaeden lifted a hoof, and raised his voice to resound upon the dead and blasted wastes.

"Let the unraveling of this world commence!"

His hoof came down on Orgrimmar.

* * *

Sara

Sara despaired.

It wasn't that she was in the infirmary, that was fine. Many people were hurt, and she got off lightly. It was that they were stretched so thin, that her worst nightmares were coming true. It was a steel hand closing over her heart. It was the doors of fate slamming shut in her face, cutting off her choices. Limiting her, confining her. _Burying her._

She'd taken a hefty amount of shadow damage, and at some point received a vigorously bleeding head wound, but it wasn't anything that couldn't be dealt with. In fact, she was already set to leave, she just had one last thing to finish first.

"And what happened then, lass?" the dwarven guard asked her, scribbling on a notepad.

"I found myself, despite being cautioned otherwise, engaged in battle with Talgath," she explained, keeping out some of the more sensitive details. "I quickly realized that, spell for spell, I would not be able to defeat him before running out of mana, so I needed time and distance. I collapsed the bridge and retreated to the Trade District to look for resources. By the time Talgath followed me there, I'd managed to utilize the dust and my own shadow magic to trigger a sort of allergic reaction," she continued, outright lying where she found need. The guard just _ate it all up._ "It was a close call, but with the modified strategy I was able to kill him. Shortly after, Leira Vindalis found me and brought me back via portal to Ironforge, where I promptly passed out from my injuries. That is all."

"I see," he muttered, writing down the last of it. "Thank you for your time, miss. I'll let you go back to your hall now."

"Thank you," she said gloomily as he paced away. She reclined into her bed and closed her eyes. "I'll get right on it," Sara groused. She didn't want to get up. But she had to, didn't she? Sara opened her eyes, swung out of bed, and got up.

Big mistake.

Immediately her legs erupted into twin pillars of agony. Her breath caught in her throat, and she went down. Even when she wasn't putting any weight on her legs, they continued to pulse, a dull ache that never, ever went away. She put her hands out and pushed herself up, but even they sent up twinges of pain. The other people in the infirmary - and they were in her section so they were mostly recovered as well - all stared at her.

_Stop looking at me, idiots,_ she thought, before casting the levitation spell on herself. Her body hoisted itself into the air, dangling nauseously. Not even bothering to take in the scenery she levitated forward, head down.

Everything was going wrong. Stormwind was reduced to rubble. There were whispers that Kil'jaeden walked Azeroth. And she was a cripple from rampant over channeling. Sara might as well amputate her legs for all the good they were now. If she kept going the way she was now, her arms would follow. Sure, with all the knowledge of an Old God she could _probably_ find a way to reverse it, but what was the point? It was all for naught.

She had to go to Ulduar.

But she couldn't! She made a promise to only do that as a last resort.

But how much more of a 'last resort' did things need to get? Everything was going _horribly!_

But was that even right? She only had a ground level view of the war. The higher ups had to know more, right? They wouldn't be sitting idle, twiddling their thumbs. They never had in the past. She had to trust they had a plan, right? Nobody wanted their planet flamebroiled.

She hovered through the Mystic Ward, stomach churning. Sara chanced a glance around in an attempt to distract her from her thoughts, but no so luck. The evidence was everywhere to be seen.

Ironforge was packed to the breaking point. Even though many of Stormwind's citizens had evacuated to Darnassus and the Exodar, Gnomeregan wasn't sized for anything larger than a dwarf, and that meant a lot of overflow. She could hover above the crowds, but there they were regardless. Overflowing from the Commons, sitting in the streets. Young children crying, adults murmuring and calming them. Hungry, thirsty and tired. Ironforge couldn't hold so many for an extended period of time, especially not with farmland going up in flames.

"They have a plan," she told herself as she approached the Military Ward. "They have a plan, they have a plan."

The Military Ward, at least, wasn't nearly as crowded. Few civilians would come here, and Sara was only in the infirmary for a day. The soldiers with more severe injuries would still be bedridden, so the cavernous area was nearly deserted. She was just going to... she didn't even know.

Before Sara knew it, she was in the Chimes's guild hall. Then she was in her room, and despite spending the past day in a sick bed she could think of nothing better than collapsing in her bed and going to sleep, putting to bed her traitorous thoughts.

Sara floated herself over her bed and dispelled her levitation. Gravity quickly took hold of her again and, with a quiet thud, she fell face first onto her pillow. She groaned once, and was out like a light.

_Knock knock knock!_

Sara cracked open an eye. She didn't know how long it'd been, but her stomach felt cavernous. _Oh what now?_

_Knock knock knock!_

"Who is it?" she asked, getting up out of her bed. Sara remembered to levitate this time, sparing herself the humiliation of falling to the ground in pain.

"Is this Miss Smithers's residence?" came a gruff woman's voice from the other side of the door.

_Oh no,_ she thought. "Yes. This is her speaking. It's open, by the way."

The door creaked open and a dwarven woman walked in, her red hair done up in a braid. Her plate armor, missing only the helmet, clinked and clanked. "Miss Sara, I hope this isn't a bad time," she said, looking up at her levitating form.

_Every time's a bad time._ She put on a warm smile. "No, not at all. Just tired from, you know. The war."

The lady smiled and nodded knowingly. "Aye, I know how it is. I mean no inconvenience, but Captain Hammerfist was lookin' through a few files and took special interest in you. Seems you're something special sweetie!"

Sara tried her hardest to keep smiling. _What?_

"If you'd follow me please, he'd like to meet with ya, chat about whatever that old hog is up to. It's not too far actually, just on the other side of the Ward."

"Sure, no problem. Lead the way," she said.

"Thank ya for being so understanding," the messenger dwarf said with a slight bow. "Alright now, come along!" The guard left the hall and, after a moment to realize what was going on, Sara hovered after her.

She didn't even notice the guild hall around them. Her eyes were trained on the dwarf's back while her thoughts raced.

Sara didn't know who Captain Hammerfist was, but he was likely at least somewhat high up. And he was looking through files. Asking for her. There were any number of possibilities as to what it was, but she knew in her gut it was about her deserting in Nethergarde. He wouldn't necessarily know that, of course. From the Alliance's perspective, she simply dropped off the face of Azeroth and reappeared in Ironforge. And Sara had built up all manner of lies to get out of this exact scenario.

They left the guild hall and entered the open space of the Military Ward, heading for the opposite corner of the area.

But now that this exact scenario was upon her, all of Sara's tricks and deceptions just seemed so flimsy to her ears. How would anyone believe it? How would she get away with mind magic? How could this end in any way other than her getting in a _tremendous_ amount of trouble? Even jailed with antimagic? There was the chance this captain merely wanted to discuss her powers, but that was a reach. Sara had to get away. She had to... she had to...

_... go back._

There weren't any more opportunities. Stormwind was her last chance, and while both Talgath and the pit lord Argolash were gone, someone much worse had taken their place. She wasn't doing good here. She had to run to the Dragonblight and enlist with the Wyrmrest Accord. No, not even that would be enough. She was a crippled god, she could only be in one place at a time. Everyone was losing. There wasn't enough firepower _left_ on Azeroth to win this war. She couldn't trust the higher ups. They _hadn't_ done anything to win this war. She couldn't stay with the Alliance. She couldn't go to the dragons. There was only one option left for her. She had to go, _right now._

Sara's lungs were heavy and her breaths weak. She didn't have her distraction gem with her... but she didn't need it anymore.

Her hands glowed, and the aura of distraction wrapped around her. Immediately she turned away from the dwarven woman and floated full-speed in the other direction. She passed over the crowded Commons and, nearly half an hour later, arrived in the Mystic Ward, her head pounding and her heart hammering. A plan. She needed a plan. A plan to go back to Ulduar, to perfect the ritual, to gather the reagents and servants needed to complete it. She would rise from the earth as a god, overwhelming and eternal, destroy the demons... and hope she could stop herself from destroying everything else.

Her gut wrenched. Her parents. Her friend. If things went wrong, she needed to make sure she wouldn't be able to reach them. The grasp of an Old God was long, but she knew just _how_ long it was. She could get them further away. Sara just had to figure out how.

By the time she reached the Mystic Ward, she had a decent idea. She floated into the Hall of Mysteries, past the stretchers carrying the wounded, past priests and paladins summoning the Holy Light. She went up the stairs, past a few ramps, and arrived in the magister section, lined with bookshelves spiraling into the depths of the earth. It was silent and empty. The wooden cylinder had only a chandelier at the top, and unlit candles along the stairwell going down.

She inspected the books, and after a moment determined they were organized using the Aegwynnian System instead of the Aranian System. She went down a few levels and found the tomes on portals. She brought out the one listing various portal location resonances and got to work.

"Maybe I should have gotten something to write on," she mused, lightning a candle. She found a table and floated into a seat, the book spread on the wood before her. She flipped, inspecting the various portal locations. Dalaran, no. Ratchet, no. Ironforge, no. Stormwind, ha, no. Vale of Eternal Blossoms, no. Shattrath, no...

.. wait. Shattrath! She flipped back and pressed her nose to the paper, reading over the coordinates. That could work. That _would_ work. Send Leira and Mom and Dad to Outland. When she transformed back into an Old God, she could destroy the Dark Portal _permanently._ The only gambles were if her consciousness wouldn't be consumed when she changed back - but it was a risk she had to take - and if she could stay benevolent towards them long enough to do so. Once the portal was closed, Outland would lose its ties to Azeroth and go drifting away in the Twisting Nether, forever out of reach. Like a boat set loose from bay. It was the perfect plan!

Excitement tingled inside of her. She got out of her seat and floated away from the book, having memorized Shattrath's coordinates. Sara could, in theory, use arcane magic to make a portal. Unfortunately, she'd never done any arcane work before, but there _was_ a way to make portals using shadow magic.

She had time. Not a lot, but some. Nobody would have noticed her go to the Mystic Ward and nobody would expect her to. The guard leading her probably knew she'd gone missing by now, so the clock was ticking. But Sara was confident. She looked over the knowledge burnt into her mind, placed the book back onto its shelf and extinguished the candle between her fingers.

It was time.

Sara's first attempt at opening the portal ended up in her casting a shadow bolt, which she stopped before doing any damage. The second attempt created a portal that would evenly spread her particles over the entire universe. The third attempt... the less said about that, the better. On the fourth try, however, she succeeded.

It took her a minute to cast. The portal was initially a tall, vertical slit in the world. Then it opened up into a vast rectangle, pitch black in the middle and violet along the edges. Six ethereal hands appeared at the edges of the portal, holding it open. Sara double checked to make sure it would bring her properly to Shattrath, then made sure it would properly expire over time. Then she floated in.

This wasn't like a mage's portal. Those made her feel like she was falling, then tossed her up as she arrived. This, however, was like sliding down a tunnel, dark and impermeable. She slid and slid, going faster and faster, until suddenly it ended and she was tossed out of open air, with only her levitation enchantment to catch her.

Sara almost went blind instantly.

She closed her eyes and bit down a scream as her skin seemed to broil. Something heavy and powerful closed in around her, scorching her soul and searching through her very being. There was not a single iota of herself she could hide from the spotlight as it inspected, turning over her every memory and action.

Then, as suddenly as it came, the light faded and Sara could open her eyes.

Sure enough, it worked. She was in Shattrath. The ground was patterned with swirling arcs, made of gray slate polished to perfection. The chamber she was in could have held the Cathedral of Light twice over. It was enormous, circular, with walls of gold speckled with sky-blue crystals. A secondary platform ringed the edges, with various personnel walking along it. The chamber rose to a point, barely open to the sky, and that point spewed a pillar of blazing light into the heavens.

The source of the light was _painfully_ obvious. Floating in the center of the chamber was a naaru.

Its heavenly light was painful to look at. The glare it gave off was pure and white, illuminating the vast chamber effortlessly. The being was created of floating, rotating shards of light the size of her torso at minimum, forming a tall being that she couldn't compare to anything else she had ever seen, except perhaps a windchime. The comparison was aided by the fact that, from the energy being, she could hear a slow melody that made her dream of days at the park, vanilla ice cream, and having bed time stories read to her. It didn't appear to be facing her, but nonetheless Sara felt like its full attention was upon her.

_'I know why you have come, dark one,'_ she heard a handsomely masculine voice say in her head. She jolted in fright, wavering in the air. The naaru still didn't face her. _'Peace, dark one. You will find no danger from us.'_ Coming from a being literally _made_ of the Holy Light, that wasn't reassuring. _'Know that those you have come to care for will find sanctuary here. The Legion tires of this world, and even now debates on writing it off as already being destroyed. Should they return, the Tempest Keep is long under our control,'_ it explained in her head, calm like a father and soothing like a volcano. _'There are many contingencies planned. Should the Burning Legion attempt to destroy us, there is ample room on the Tempest Keep structures even with the absence of the Exodar. Every citizen will be boarded, and will be translocated to safety.'_

Sara hesitated, and thought in the direction of the naaru. A glance back made her wonder if her shadow was darker than normal here. _'That is reassuring.'_ A pause. _'You know what I'm going to do to Azeroth.'_

_'You yourself do not know. There is much conflict in you, dark one. A saying among the mortals exists, cautioning that those who spend time among monsters may take on their characteristics. This very saying is applicable to the fallen Titan. However, I would implore you to consider the reverse is also more than possible.'_ The energy being sounded like it was pleading. _'If you go through with this, nothing will be able to force you save the Pantheon, which is half a galaxy away and growing more distant at all times. Your nature will not_ force _you to do anything. I merely ask you, once your planet is cleared of the Flame, to do as those you care about would wish you to do.'_

Sara considered that. It was what she planned already, but hearing the literal embodiment of all that was good and right tell her that was what she should do made her stomach churn. _'You speak as though my success is a foregone conclusion,'_ she noted. _'I know little of the ways of the Light. Are you mystics?'_ she asked bluntly, all hopes of deception burned away under the naaru's glow.

_'We can see possibilities, to an extent. In what you are to bring, I can see nothing. But I do know what has been established. The machinations set in place by your previous incarnation, by their nature, have a very high chance of success. Indeed, the only thing that may reliably risk those plans is you changing such that you would not wish to return. Your success is not guaranteed, dark one, but it is highly probable.'_ The chiming song grew fainter and darker, and Sara felt as though she'd performed a grave injustice just by moderately saddening this being. _'I only ask you take my words into consideration if you do succeed.'_ The song brightened once more.

_'Now,'_ it explained. _'I will lend you some modicum of aid, to expedite your search and hurry your nullification of the demons. The two homes you seek are located in the northernmost section of the Lower City, on the inner ring. Eight Hundred Poros road, and Seventy One Dioniss avenue. They are both for sale, and there is little interest in them due to their exorbitant costs. For the former, which you will find suited for your parents, it is one hundred thousand gold.'_

Sara nearly choked.

_'For the latter,'_ the naaru continued. _'It is fifty five thousand. Do as you will to accrue this money, but do no harm. Go in peace, dark one.'_

The naaru didn't turn, but Sara _felt_ its attention turn away from her. The light it gave off seemed less intense than before.

"Breathtaking, is it not?" a voice asked from beside her. Sara shrieked and spun around, only to be met with the sight of a draenic man. His eyes widened and he held a hand to his mouth. "Oh, my apologies. I hadn't meant to startle you. You just seemed deeply enraptured with A'dal."

"Yeah," she muttered. "Enraptured. I shouldn't have spent so long staring, I have to get some potions."

The man nodded. "I know the feeling. Go in peace, friend!" he said in his heavy accent.

"Yeah, go in peace as well," she said, turning away to hover out of the chamber. She found a doorway and exited into a world of fresh air.

Sara had never been in Outland before. It was... strange. The air smelled faintly of arcane magic, and if she looked closely at the off-blue sky, she could make out rivers of nether energy arcing across it. The gravity was lower, too. It wasn't easy to notice while levitating, but things _definitely_ fell a great deal slower than on Azeroth, and the air was a tad thin as well.

Shattrath itself was colossal. While not as busy as it had been during the Outland Campaign, the city still saw a decent amount of traffic. Even as she made her way north she saw wooden crates being shoved through portals, filled with weapons, potions, and more. At least Shattrath wasn't abandoning Azeroth in its time of need. The spire of light coming from the center pierced into the heavens, like a bonfire at Sara's back.

Sara reached the Lower City in good time, hovering down into it. She'd read books about the place during the Outland Campaign, and was satisfied to see it had picked itself up. No longer were refugees squatting in every alley. No longer did piles of rubble outnumber homes. Shattrath wasn't a glorified refugee camp anymore, it was a proper _city._ It smelled of fungus and mold, but that was fine. Sara made her way across the streets, scanning for numbers, and first found the house A'dal recommended for Leira.

It was hard to make anything of it from the outside, so she got inside with a touch of magic to prevent onlookers. Even so, it was hard for her to make many judgements. She didn't know anything about home ownership, and the fact that everything was in Shattrath's geometric architecture made it even harder to judge. But she didn't find any infestations, cracks, or anything of the like. And it was more than spacious enough for one person, with three rooms and a bathroom. There was even an attic consisting solely of a closet. Much better than the hole Leira occupied in Ironforge.

She left that building and inspected the other one. It wasn't next to Leira's to-be house, but it was only a twenty minute walk so maybe they could see each other from time to time. It was big, too. A proper second floor, with rooms she was already scoping out to be bedrooms, restrooms, and so much more. It was empty, no furnishings in sight, but Sara nodded and gave mental thanks to A'dal. These two homes would be perfect. She just had to pay for them.

The solution was obvious: Sara had to figure out how to conjure precious metals from thin air.

* * *

All in all, Sara spent a week in Shattrath City. The first day she'd had to do some modest thieving just to have food, water, and a fresh change of clothes - and the sun felt unusually bright when she did - but by the second day she'd figured out the conjuration of gold. From there money snowballed in, especially as she upgraded to truesilver, adamantite, titanium, and even elementium. She sold them on auction, and demand for them was huge. She could even justify it if she had to: if her plan to become an Old God fell through, she'd provided a large amount of valuable resources for the defense of Azeroth.

She went as fast as she could. Not only could she _feel_ A'dal's gaze upon her at all times, but every minute that passed she wondered if _now_ Ironforge was destroyed, or maybe _now,_ or _now._ Alas, she could only gather over 155,000 gold so fast.

She bought the houses, and had the deeds signed to her parents and Leira respectively, as gifts. And since the houses were both completely empty, she also bought basic furnishings for them, plus a few thousand gold left over for expenses... and she'd also written down the instructions for a dark ritual to summon precious metals much the same way she'd been doing, except it didn't require them to be magical. They would never want for anything.

Sara browsed through a library and found the portal coordinates for Darnassus. She took a deep breath, floating inside what would soon be her parents' house.

Her left hand came up, and filaments of dark purple energy flowed along her arm before condensing into an orb in the palm. She finished setting up the nether channels, set the proper values to the filters, and thrust her hand into the air.

A dark rift in reality tore open before her, held open by shadow hands. In the city of Shattrath, the portal seemed far darker and more ominous than it had in the depths of the Mystic Ward. But she couldn't hang around to admire it, she had places to go and things to do. Checking to make sure her pack was fastened on her back, Sara floated through.

Again, she slid down a shrouded tunnel, and at its end she was again thrown out. This time, in the middle of a temple dedicated to the goddess Elune.

Stomach churning in anxiety, Sara left without paying any attention to the scenery, or the statue, or the inhabitants. Were she not on a mission, she would've taken time to explore. Darnassus was a _new experience,_ something she'd never seen before. But she _was_ on a mission. She levitated into the wide open spaces of Darnassus, headed north from the temple. Even if she wasn't trying, she couldn't help but see the sights.

Trees with magenta leaves sprouted from the greenest grass she had ever seen. Gentle clouds drifted in the air, with thousands of stars twinkling behind them. Shimmering blue orbs drifted back and forth. Sara thought they were lights for a moment, but then one of them came by her and she saw _it had a face._

Wisps.

The wisp looked at her, raised a ghostly eyebrow, then sped away from her.

Sara made her way to the central island, then turned east to head towards the main part of Darnassus. That was when a problem occurred to her. She had no idea where her parents _were_ within Darnassus.

She found a pair of sentinels on patrol. The night elven women were dressed up in elegant purple armor, their hair was tied back, and the glaives at their sides looked sharp enough to slice through elementium. She shook herself and made to show fear as she approached them. "Excuse me," she asked demurely. "I'm looking for my parents. I know they're here as refugees, but I've been looking all day and I'm really worried about them..." she explained, trailing off and forcing the beginning of tears in her eyes.

"Calm yourself. We can guide you to them," one of the sentinels explained, holding out a hand gently. "What were their last names?"

"Smithers," she explained, letting her demeanor calm down. "Last name Smithers."

The same sentinel closed her eyes and murmured to herself in Darnassian. Eventually, she opened her eyes and switched back to Common. "Should be in the 'S' group. Right this way, miss."

"Thank you," she said timidly, following the night elf.

As they crossed the bridges, Sara glanced down at the crystal clear water. The fish within all darted away from her. In the distance, Sara could see gray-roofed buildings belonging to the Tradesmen's Terrace. Some of the buildings were grown entirely out of trees, and others of some odd purple stone. Darnassus probably wouldn't be quite as crowded as Ironforge, but even still...

They came off the bridge and turned a few corners. Night elves rushed back and forth in a surprising hurry. Other races joined them, moving up and down ramps, forward and backward along streets, haggling in shops, buying, some selling, adjusting their packs, and so forth. Sara continued to follow the sentinels until they stopped at a four way intersection.

"The nearest refugee center is that way," the other sentinel said, pointing down one of the streets. "Take the first right, it'll be the second building on the left. I wish you luck in finding your parents, young one."

Sara tried not to show how much she hated being called that, instead putting on her 'grateful face'. "Oh thank you so much. You're lifesavers." She rushed forward and, once the sentinels were behind her, let scorn overwhelm her expression. She rolled her eyes, and followed the directions.

The refugee house was... large. It was one of the tree buildings. The trunk was wide and the bark was like purple shingles. The branches were wide and, were it day, the purple leaves would've cast a tremendous amount of shade. At the base of the tree was a rectangular hole carved through it with care, and from within a bright yellow light poured onto the streets. Within, if the sentinels were correct, would be her parents.

Sara stopped right before the entrance and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. Then she floated inside.

It really _was_ a refugee camp. While it wasn't layered with sleeping bags and crowded to the point of immobility, there were a lot of people in the rounded room, gathered into groups and chatting with each other quietly. At the chamber's top was a lit chandelier of intricate design. A stairwell wound up the side of the room, vanishing into an opening in the ceiling to what Sara could only assume was the second floor. The other end of the stairs went into a hole in the floor, deeper and deeper beyond her sight.

She'd leave checking underground for last.

Sara got a few looks as she levitated in, but she didn't care about those idiots. Only two people in this entire building mattered beyond herself and she was going to find them. Looking left and right rapidly, she scanned over the crowd of assorted Alliance mortals. When her search proved fruitless, she moved to the next level, and then the next.

Reluctantly, she had to give the kaldorei credit. They were great at working inside trees. There were cubbies to sleep in, balconies, even a kitchen working overtime. But she wasn't here to marvel. She was here to get her parents to Outland, where they'd be safe. She had to remember that.

Her stomach twisted inside of her. It slowly began to dawn on her that this would be the last time she ever saw them. For so long her parents had been a constant in her life and that was the one constant she wasn't willing to _change._ But her hands were tied, and she'd come too far. The Alliance military was probably on a headhunt for her, and she'd already bought and furnished the homes in Shattrath. She couldn't turn back.

She swallowed a tight knot in her throat and went to the fourth floor. There, after a moment of scanning across a few dozen unfamiliar faces, she saw Mom and Dad. They were engaged in idle conversation, sitting on a bench near the edge of the room. They were exactly like she remembered from her last visit. Mom was dressed in a fine white blouse, blue pants, and blue heels. Vibrant red hair was tied up in a bun, but there were lines of age around her eyes. Dad, like always, dwarfed her. His hair was black and slick, and with carefully groomed sideburns and a short beard, though if she looked closely there were flecks of silver in his hair. They hadn't seemed to notice her yet, so she took a deep breath.

Then she approached them, her heart threatening to pound right out of her chest. She hovered between a few other refugees, then stopped a short distance from them. Mom was angled so that Sara was in her eyesight, and Sara could tell she was spotted when her mother trailed off her conversation and looked at her.

"Hi Mom, hi Dad," she said weakly, willing herself to hover closer to the floor.

Mom gasped and rushed forward, wrapping her arms around Sara. Sara returned the hug and tried to squeeze, but a slight ache in her arms forced her to stop. "Oh honey! I'm so glad you're alright! We weren't expecting to see you."

Dad joined in, and the breath fled from Sara's lungs as his grip tightened. "Ach!" she croaked. "Too tight!" They both let go and moved to a respectful distance, letting Sara recover her breath. "Yeah, surprise," she said with a fragile smile. "Mom, Dad, listen. I need to talk to you, it's important." She leaned in. "Preferably where nobody else can hear," she whispered.

"Oh," Mom said. "It's _that_ kind of important, hmm?" she asked. "Alright, let's go outside then."

"Thanks," she whispered, turning around and floating down the stairs, Mom and Dad following after her. She led them out of the building and to a little out of the way street with nobody in earshot. There, she pivoted in midair to face them.

"Honey, why are you floating?" Dad asked. Then he smiled wryly. "Ground not good enough for you?" he joked.

Sara looked down. "I got hurt, I can't walk anymore," she explained. Before the hurt on her parents' faces could transform into apologies, she continued. "Listen, this is _really_ important. The war's going badly. I mean, _horribly._ If we keep going the way we are now we are not going to win. If we want this to work, someone has to do something drastic and I... um, I have an idea."

Her parents shared a look. "The news _has_ been rather dire," Dad said. "But are you saying you can end this war, what, on your own? Sara, honey, I know you have a lot of magic but not _that_ much."

"I know I don't," she said weakly. "But... okay. Before the war I went on expedition for my Archmage title. In the process I learned of a way. It would... I can't give you any details, but it's a ritual that would take an inch and go a mile. It would completely win the war on its own if I can cast it but... there's risk involved," she said. "To me, and even more to everyone else. That amount of magic could, um, backfire. The Legion would still lose, but we'd all lose too." _I wouldn't,_ she thought. Provided her consciousness remained, but that was a risk she didn't have any control over. No sense worrying about it. "I-I can't stand the thought of hurting you two," she stammered, her stomach twisting in her gut. "I came here because we need to get out of Darnassus. Shattrath City, in Outland. It'd be safe," she explained. "I portaled over there a week ago to set things up."

"Sara, sweetie, calm down," Mom said, taking a step forward and placing a hand on her cheek. Sara stuttered to a stop. "Say it again but slower."

"I'm going to cast a spell to win this war, but it might really hurt everyone too. I bought a house in Shattrath City for you two, where it'll be safe. Time's running out though, we _have_ to hurry," she pleaded.

Dad's eyes went wide. "You bought a _house?_ "

"I bought a house," she explained.

"Sara," Mom said with a frown. "Did you steal money?"

It hurt because that wasn't an unreasonable guess. "No, I actually didn't. I kind of conjured raw materials for the war and sold them. A lot of very valuable ones. Um, I learned a _lot_ on my expedition," she explained, dancing around an issue she didn't want to explain to them. "Please, let's go over there. And if you don't want to, we can always come back. But it wouldn't be safe at all and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I.. if I..." Her lungs were tight. By the void, why wasn't she getting any air?

"Shh, shh," Mom hushed. "Sara, it's alright. I understand what you're saying. But you're sure you have to do this? You don't have to be a hero."

_I'm not going to be a hero,_ she thought. "I know, but I don't know what else to do. Kil'jaeden's already here. Stormwind's gone, and I was on Outland for a week so I don't even know if Ironforge is still intact," she explained, panic hammering in her chest. What if her parents refused? "Please, let me just show you," she pleaded.

Mom and Dad looked at each other and seemed to share a silent conversation. Then Dad looked at her. "Alright Sara. We'll take a look at what you've set up. Can you, um...?"

"Right!" she chirped, brightening. "Portal, on it." She wheeled around and began summoning her magic, twisting and manipulating her dark powers into the proper form. She still remembered the coordinates for Shattrath, and within moments the portal opened up, help open by hands. "I know it looks scary, but trust me, it's safe." She paused. "Going through's gonna feel weird though, so just brace yourself." She floated in, hoping her parents would trust her enough to follow. She slid down the tunnel of darkness and arrived, again, in the Terrace of Light.

A'dal's light scorched her, but the heat abated after just a moment. Sara backed away from the portal's entrance spot and waited, wringing her hands nervously.

Seconds later her mother popped into existence, black smoke briefly wafting off her. She stumbled forward, but steadied herself. Dad followed soon after, catching himself expertly. He looked around and whistled. "So, _this_ is Shattrath?" His eyes went towards the naaru in the middle and widened. "And is that - "

She floated behind her parents and began pushing them to an exit, unwilling to stay in the fountain of Light longer than necessary. "Yes yes, let's go!" she said excitedly. She couldn't stop worrying. What if her parents didn't think the home was adequate? Or... or...

She led them through Shattrath. Their steps were unsteady and uneven thanks to the lower gravity. Her parents' heads swiveled around, taking in the sights with rapturous awe. Eventually she brought them down a slope to the Lower City, where their inspection continued like before. She tried her hardest to keep her breathing even, but she couldn't help but feel like they knew everything that worried her. Eventually though, they ended up at Eight Hundred Poros Road, at the house she'd bought for them to live in for the rest of their lives.

"Well, this is it," she said. From her pockets she fished out the key, a hexagonal piece of green metal in Shattrath's design. She floated forward and fit it into the lock, opening the door after a few moments of effort. "I hope you like it." Her parents walked in behind her, heads turning as they took in everything. They fanned out, looking over everything. The living room, the kitchen, the couches and chairs and such Sara had bought.

"There's an upstairs," she explained, floating towards the stairs. "I wasn't sure which room you'd want as a bedroom, so I just chose the biggest one." Mom and Dad joined her on the second floor. Sure enough, in the largest room was a king sized bed with golden blankets, stylized with the symbol of a naaru.

Eventually, they'd inspected everything, and Mom turned to her with astonishment written on her face, and a hand on her heart. "Sara, you _bought_ all this? For us?"

She looked down. "Well, our house in Elwynn's kinda... blown up," she supplied. "And this place is safer than anywhere on Azeroth. Even if the Legion attacks here, the naaru have a plan to evacuate absolutely everyone to safety. Do you like it?"

They both came in and hugged her again. "It's wonderful, sweetie!" Dad said. "I can't believe you did all this for us." They pulled away, and he cracked a grin. "Normally it's the parent's job to get things for the kid, you know. You're doing everything in reverse!"

"So, you'll stay?" she asked hesitantly. "The deed's in the drawer there," she said, pointing to a corner. "It's already written out in your name and everything. Even if you choose not to use it, you own the house, entire thing. No mortgage, nothing."

Her parents huddled up and whispered to each other, their backs to her. Mom gestured wildly with her hands, but Dad was more composed. Finally, they turned back to her. "We'll stay here Sara, if it means that much to you," Mom said, moving to sit on a bright blue couch.

She nearly cried in relief, floating over to the same couch. Sara dispelled her levitation and flopped onto it, briefly flaring the pain in her legs. "Thank you _so_ much," she gasped. "There's... there's more stuff in the drawers. A way to conjure the things I did without needing your own magic, some money, and a letter."

Dad opened said drawer and rifled through it. "This letter? To be opened in a month?" he asked, reading the envelope.

She shifted nervously. "There's some things I... don't feel comfortable saying, and if this fails..." That wasn't entirely true. If she succeeded, she would permanently shatter _all_ contact between Outland and Azeroth in both directions. Her parents would never see her again, so the least she could do is tell them everything about herself. Every secret she'd performed with her magic, every trick, every secret of her origin. Just not in front of them. And a month would be more than enough for her plan to sink or swim.

Mom wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in. "I understand, honey. Now come on, I think I saw some groceries already in the kitchen, alright? Let me whip something up real quick, alright?"

She wanted to go back to Ironforge. She still felt time weighing down upon her, urgency strangling her, but she couldn't deny her parents. "Alright, Mom."

Her mother made fried Icefin, but there was only water to drink. They went to the dinner table and lit the candles, and if it weren't for the surrounding decor, Sara almost would've believed it to be just like old times, before she left for Stormwind to study magic. Waves of nostalgia crashed over her, but the uneasy kind where you feel it was best left in the past, and reliving it was just not right, like it was spoiling the memory. She and her parents made small talk, heavy talk, but eventually the lights shining onto Outland dimmed and it was decided she _had_ to go.

She gave them both hugs and plenty of kisses on the cheek. She tried her absolute hardest not to cry. In all her life she'd only cried once, after being overwhelmed with the knowledge of her past life, and she wasn't eager for her parents to see the sort of mess she'd become. Sara tried to delay leaving, and so did her parents, with what must've been a dozen 'one more' goodbyes. But she couldn't put it off forever, and under cover of darkness she opened a portal to Ironforge.

Shrouded with a distraction aura, Sara gave a longing look at the house. Maybe she could've stayed. Forsake Azeroth. Get Leira, bring her here, and live in Outland. She had the skills and she had the means. Forget the millions who meant nothing. Or maybe get them to Outland and then join the Legion, as Talgath had tried to get her to do. But that would be running. That would be admitting defeat. As loathe as she was to obey it, A'dal told her to consider what those she cared about would want. They would want her to do something to be proud of. They wouldn't want her to leave millions for dead.

She entered the portal and exited in Ironforge. Sara found an isolated nook, and _then_ she cried.

"A-Alright," she whispered once she was done. "Two down, one to go." At least Ironforge was still visibly intact. There was still time.

She drifted through at top speed. Sara didn't know if Leira was even _in_ Ironforge. But it was fine. She could do this. And if Leira was, by some unfortunate turn of events, dead? Yogg-Saron wouldn't be able to hurt her, and the draenei would enjoy the Light's peace for eternity.

It took her two hours to weave through crowds and reach the Chimes of A'dal's guild hall. From there, it was a short trip to Leira's room. She tried to open it. Locked. She knocked. No response.

So Sara just had to wait.

... and wait. And wait.

Floating against a wall, she even got a few winks of restless sleep. Eventually though, she was stirred back to wakefulness by the sound of hooves on stone. She glanced down the hall and sure enough, there was Leira approaching with a key in her hands. Her black hair was matted with sweat and she just looked generally dead on her hooves. Sara forced down a bite of guilt. Leira could have plenty of rest once they were in Outland.

She moved to the side to let Leira pass, open the door, and close it behind her as she entered. The moment that happened, Sara relaxed her distraction aura and knocked.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" came the shout from within. The door opened with a clamor, revealing a furious warrior. "What is it now - Sara?" She drew back and blinked. "Holy shit, where have you _been?!_ " she hissed, eyebrows contorting.

"Outland, it's a long story. Can I come in? I need to talk to you," she replied, putting the same urgency in her words as when she'd come here, not knowing who to turn to, after learning she was an Old God.

"Oookay..." she said, raising an eyebrow. Sara floated in and closed the door behind her. "What about?"

"Alright. I was in Outland because I bought you and my folks a house," she said bluntly. Leira's eyes bugged out. "No, I didn't mind control anyone. I conjured expensive stuff and sold it, okay? Maybe flooded the market a bit but that's the least of everyone's concerns."

"You... what? A house? Outland? Why?"

"Shattrath actually." There was no easy way to say this. Sara took a deep breath, floating high enough to be eye level with her friend. "Leira, I'm going to change back into Yogg-Saron."

A moment passed.

"What?! No, no no no no! Don't do that!" Leira waved her hands frantically, then collapsed onto her bed. "Why?!"

"You know why!" Sara countered. "Everything on this planet sucks! I know you told me to have faith but you know what? Sometimes faith is misplaced. The demons have gotten smarter, they know all our tricks. If I don't do this, everyone dies."

"If you _do_ do this, everyone will wish they were dead," Leira said grimly.

"That's not for sure," she countered. "Anyway, the house is in Shattrath. It's safe there, with the naaru, and if the Legion ever decides to attack it they've got the Tempest Keep to evacuate everyone offworld."

Leira narrowed her eyes. "If you're not going to do horrible things, then why even bother with this?" she asked.

Sara hesitated, then fiddled with her fingers. "Because I... I might okay? I admit it, I might. If my consciousness is swallowed, I want you as far away from me as possible. If I'm not, then if I ever lose control and go back to how I was before... I'm hoping I can shut down the Dark Portal before that happens. Shut down any portals between the planets at all, really. Then it won't matter if I stop holding back."

"Won't matter?!" Leira sputtered, throwing her hands up in disbelief. "Sara, what about _everyone else,_ huh? Are you just gonna say 'oh well' with them?" Sara didn't reply. "Light damn it, Sara! Listen, I know how you feel about other people! I know how little you care about them. But the world's not just the four of us! We're not the only ones whose lives matter!"

"You're the only ones whose lives matter to me!" she shouted. "I'm trying to save the world! If I don't do this then we WILL lose! Look around, Leira! LOOK AROUND! Stormwind's gone! Silvermoon, gone! Undercity, gone! If I heard right, then Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff are gone too. Kil'jaeden's here, he's not going to fall for any tricks, we're out of farms, out of space, almost out of food and water! There isn't enough firepower left on the _planet_ to win this war!"

"Oh yeah? I'm pretty sure if the Dragon Aspects ganged up on Kil'jaeden he'd go down!"

"The Dragon Aspects haven't _done_ anything! Nobody has! Everyone always says 'oh we'll shut down these portals', 'oh we'll hold out this city, this town, this castle' and none of it ever works! My plan is the ONLY thing that'll work!" she shouted, head buzzing with volume.

"Bullshit it is! You're not doing this!" Leira shouted back. "You think you're my only friend, Sara? You think _you're_ the only one in my life?! What about Alex, or Anra, or Hammon? You gonna spare them?" Sara didn't have any response. "Or your parents, huh? Did you think about their friends? Or _my_ parents? What about them, Sara? You are talking about summoning an _unshackled Old God_ onto the planet! Think I'll just let you rip their minds apart?"

"Oh good to know how much you trust me!" she countered. This wasn't going as planned. This wasn't going as planned at all... "Oh Sara's not really your friend is she? Just stick around the unstable _psycho_ to keep her from going off and murdering everybody, is that how it is?" she spat.

"That's how it's starting to be!" Leira shouted, and Sara suppressed a flinch. "I'd rather have the fucking Legion burn the planet to charcoal than have an Old God squatting on it! I'm not going to Outland, and you're not going to Northrend."

Sara lowered her voice into dangerously black territories, trembling with rage. "Leira," she growled, snapping up a barrier around herself in case things got ugly. "You're coming to Shattrath, and you're staying there," she said with grave finality.

"Make me," the draenei challenged, balling her fists.

This time Sara did visibly wince, hovering backwards until she bumped into the wall. She looked down, narrowed her eyes, then locked eyes with Leira and snarled.

She extended her unutterable powers into the warrior's mind...

* * *

It was cold in Dalaran.

Icy winds blew through the streets and cut into her fur jacket. Sara huddled her hands closer to herself and drew the hood up, floating on. The streets were a lovely shade of purple and the Silver Enclave's buildings all had beautiful sky blue caps. She looked from side to side occasionally, searching for her destination while most of the time she scribbled in a notebook.

After a moment, she found her destination and hurried into the inn known as A Hero's Welcome.

Once inside, warmth blasted her with the strength of a dragon. She flipped her hood off and blew out sharply, shaking her head to clear it. Sara approached the bartender. "Hi there," she greeted the old woman. "I'll have a loaf of crusty flatbread, a slice of sweet potato bread, a caribou steak, and uh, two sweetened goat's milks please."

"Sure thing dearie," the older human said, writing down her order. After a few minutes, Sara was about five gold poorer and seated at a table, eating her lunch. Her notebook came out and she continued her work, perfecting the ritual that would change her back into Yogg-Saron.

The devil was in the details. Her soul was acclimated to a _human_ body. Trying to get it to stick into a body the size of a continent would have her slipping off and _nothing_ would get done! She needed to feed her soul a _tremendous_ amount of life energy, but she had to wonder if there was enough life energy on the planet. And she needed a way to repair the damage done to Yogg-Saron's body, reshape her soul, get enough mana to do it, keep an arcane feedback from tearing everything apart... it was hard work even for her.

Her thoughts wandered as she ate and worked. Her parents and Leira were safe. That was all that mattered. Now there was nothing holding her back. She was still racing Kil'jaeden and his armies, but they had no idea where she was or what she was about to do. They'd be taken utterly by surprise as Yogg-Saron broke free from Northrend.

... Leira's words still hurt. The worst part was, she knew there was some merit to them. Sara wasn't an idiot. She knew there was nothing intrinsically special about the three of them. There was no defining factor that made them more worthy than any other mortal or immortal on the planet. The only reason she was attached to them was because right now, she was a human, with a human brain, and she'd bonded with them during her formative years. There was no other reason to set them apart, to care about them.

But she _did_ set them apart. She _had_ bonded with them and she _did_ care about them. So what if it made her a hypocrite? So what if she was picking and choosing? She was a god! She could do that if she wanted! She was going to save the world, wasn't she afforded some -

_Snap!_

Sara relaxed, angrily looking down at the pencil she'd snapped. "Damn it." She threw it into her pack and fished out a new one.

She shouldn't be thinking about them. She had a goal, Sara had to focus everything onto it. What came after would be simple. Focus on the work, that was all she needed to do.

Eventually, her bread vanished and her steak was half eaten. The goat's milk wasn't as sweet as she thought it'd be, and had a strange aftertaste that may or may not have been her imagination. She'd need to get a room in the inn soon. Sara rested her head and looked around the inn, at the various patrons seated. There was a high elf, a human, a worgen, and even a - wait a second.

High elf.

She inspected him. He was on the other side of the inn with his side to her, picking away at a meal of sour cheese. Sara packed up her things and floated up from her seat, approaching his table with a swaying motion not unlike a snake. She arrived at his table and slid into the seat, smile too large for her face.

"Well well well," she said, and he snapped up to stare at her. For a moment he was confused, and then the blood drained from his face.

"If it isn't my good friend, Higris," she told the cultist.


	32. Chapter 31: Unrestrained

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Kil'jaeden

  


Bilgewater Harbor was pathetic.

The goblins had renovated Azshara into a symbol of the Horde, one his armies had taken great pleasure in tearing down. Streets were melted down. Rockets explosively lit. And now, Kil'jaeden himself stood before the capitol of the Bilgewater Cartel, ready to make a _firm_ impression.

The news of Orgrimmar was already making rounds, he knew that through various scouting spells. But he also intended to show that, despite his title, subterfuge and transmission rituals were far from his only tools. He would destroy Bilgewater through more conventional means.

It disgusted him. The water was filthy and the air smelled. The fact that the goblins had so little care for the environment did not particularly upset him, it was the fact that their apathy was geared towards an outcome other than his. The Legion sterilized. The goblins festered.

They were ready, though. Land mines burst under his hooves, guns were mounted to every roofstop, and goblins stood by them with rockets held on their shoulders. A stream of lead and RPGGs flew onto Kil'jaeden as he approached, but all of it either popped harmlessly against his skin or was deflected by his wings. His muscular tail swayed as he approached and, once he was close enough, he held his hands at his waist. Fireballs rippled inside of his palms, then burst along his body.

The ocean boiled.

In countless ages past, he had been privy to watching Lord Sargeras trample worlds himself, and he had gotten to watch as forests on the other side of the planet burst into flames, as water boiled for miles around. Kil'jaeden couldn't achieve something so powerful and widespread passively like the Dark Titan could, but he _was_ able to magically perform a scaled down version. And so, the seas around Bilgewater churned and frothed as he approached.

His hands cupped more flame, and he tossed it into the air. The fireballs splintered into smaller ones, then those splintered, then again and again until the sky was filled with flame darts that came crashing down on Bilgewater like hail. Mortals were rent in half. Metal roofs were melted. Weapons were shredded and stored explosives detonated prematurely, a chorus of pops and explosions.

Kil'jaeden sustained the shower of flame darts, giving the defenders' onslaught no attention. Soon, Bilgewater was a charred crater surrounded by a boiling sea, and everyone within was dead.

But just to be sure _nobody_ had gotten away, Kil'jaeden levitated himself into the center of the ruined city. He wrapped his wings around himself and began chanting in demonic, gathering the vast darkness of millions of souls. When the spell was ready, he tossed his wings back and roared. The enormous spell burst outwards, shadow energy washing over the surrounding city, piercing through buildings, through shrapnel, seeking out any life it could find and throttling it. He felt a few bursts of power as the spell found survivors, and then it was over.

The Horde had no capital cities remaining. Time to focus on Moonglade.

* * *

Sara

  


She let the cult leader squirm. Higris stared at her - and she noted he only had his left eye remaining, the right under an eyepatch - in disbelief.

"You," he said eventually, lowering his voice to a hiss. "What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

She reclined in her seat and laced her fingers together. "Would you believe me if I said blind luck? I'm here on some very important business." The gears in her head turned, and she winked at him. "Business I think you'll definitely want to get in on. Liking the eye patch, by the way."

He scowled. "That would be the qiraji's doing. What business?"

She looked around, then frowned at him. "Too many prying ears. Let's switch over to telepathy." She held up her left hand and shrouded it with purple energy. Lines in his brain linked to her, and she'd refined the technique not to trip any magic alarms. _'There we are,'_ she thought to him. _'Now. Business. What if I told you I know how to revive Yogg-Saron?'_

He blinked, then frowned. _'You would never think to aid me, after my attempt at killing you.'_

 _'Well I'm very forgiving,'_ she lied. _'And besides, I don't hold that against you.'_ She shrugged. _'I was going to turn on you anyway, you just beat me to it. But things have changed. C'Thun showed me things. And those things led to_ other _things, and wouldn't you know, I now have a vested interest in resurrecting Yogg-Saron.'_

He crossed his arms. _'I don't believe you.'_

 _'Well of course you don't. So I'll make you.'_ He stiffened. _'Higris. I AM going to resurrect Yogg-Saron and you are going to help me. One way or another. I can't prove anything to you here, but if we can get some place alone I can demonstrate.'_

He scoffed and responded, _'So you can mind control me without witnesses. Do you take me for a fool?'_

 _'Yes, but that's nothing personal. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was an Old God imprisoned in Ulduar.'_ He rolled his eyes. _'It was weak but getting stronger and stronger, and while it could have simply waited to gather more and more strength, it was certain it already had more than enough to escape, so no need to wait any longer, right? Wrong. An expedition showed up and their main fighting force, backed by three Titan Watchers, struck it down. But it had a backup plan, you see. Just before death, it ejected its soul from its_ _body.'_ Higris jolted upright, his remaining eye wide. _'I see I got your attention. The idea was that the Old God would possess a mortal, and when the world least expected it, it would return to Ulduar and put itself back in its body. Well Higris, it turns out the body it possessed was me.'_

"You lie," he said aloud. "Brazenly so." He switched back to telepathy. _'You are but a shadow of the Masters. A human like any other, thieving the barest portion of their powers.'_

She shrugged. _'That's where you're wrong. But hey, don't just take it from me. Take it from my research.'_ Sara pushed her notebook, filled with her attempts to perfect the ritual, over to Higris. _'Does this look like the work of someone who's lying?'_

Higris was a mage, he'd proven that much in their fight. You didn't get to know polymorphs and counterspells without a hefty amount of research. For a layman, Sara could've scribbled nonsense and passed it off as anything. Higris wasn't a layman. He flipped through her notebook, reading her notes, the various forms the spell had undergone, and frowned. Eventually he reached the end of it and passed it back to her.

_'I still hold reservations over you actually being one of the Great Ones.'_

_'So be it. But you do believe what I intend to do.'_

_'I do.'_ The high elf narrowed his eyes. _'On the last page, you made an arithmetic error. Sha crystals have a density of eighty-nine thaums per gram, not eighty-eight and a half.'_

She opened it up and scribbled in the correction. That was embarrassing. _'Noted. So you will aid me then?'_

He bared his teeth and exhaled sharply through his nose. _'This ritual you plan... it could work. It still needs completion, but if it means seeing great Yogg-Saron walk this world then by all means. I will aid you in any way I can.'_

 _'Excellent. Do you have any of your minions left?'_ Everything was going according to plan. What a stroke of luck she'd find someone indoctrinated by the Old Gods here in Dalaran!

_'Yes, actually. Everyone with me in Silithus died, but that was not my entire flock. Two dozen, all in Dalaran, half of which are casters of my caliber.'_

_'Then gather them. I'll grab a room at the inn, and we can get to work there. I'll be waiting at the top of the stairs.'_ She pushed out her chair and hovered up. "Oh, and Higris?" She leaned in. "If you betray me, I'll tear your spleen out through your throat," she whispered, sending a jolt of fear and subservience into him before severing the telepathy link.

Sara floated to the bartender and started talking with her, eventually getting a room to reside in for a few days. She grabbed the key and floated up the stairs, taking a right and a left until she arrived at the corresponding door. She opened it and floated in.

Sara whistled. Dalaran was a city of opulence, but it never ceased to amaze her. The stained glass windows were framed by vibrant purple curtains, the floor was a checkerboard of polished stone inlaid with gems, the walls' paint was unchipped and even. The queen sized bed had purple sheets embroidered with the golden eye of the Kirin Tor. A colossal dresser stood in the corner, closed, and opposite from it was a bookshelf filled with countless arcane tomes. Next to the bed was a nightstand with a lamp she could tug on and off with a string.

She shuddered to think of how much it was costing her, especially in war times, but did it matter? Soon, she'd never need money ever again. She could afford this.

Sara flopped onto the soft, springy bed and flipped open her notebook. While Higris was busy gathering his people, she could at least get something done. This was, after all, her _absolute_ priority. Figure out the ritual. She kept working, and she _did_ manage to figure out a way to get her soul to stick. She didn't need enough life energy to bond with an Old God, she needed enough life energy to _kickstart_ her soul's growth, and then it would take care of itself. It would complicate the ritual, though...

_Knock knock knock!_

"It's open," she shouted. The door opened up and in came Higris, followed by a dozen other mortals of various genders and Alliance races. "Close the door," she said coldly. The one closest to the door, a gnomish man, did just so. Once they were alone, Sara's grin went crooked. "Excellent."

Her magic washed over them before they had a chance at defending themselves. She paralyzed them and shut off their magic, gently lowering them to the ground. Then she began her work, twisting and reworking their loyalty lines, whispering to them to see how it was going. One by one, they bent to her will, pliable and generous. Sara wasn't going to take another risk. Higris _might_ be loyal to her now that she was aligned with him, but she wasn't going to bet on his good will. No, they were all going to serve her _by force._ Maybe he'd expected it and counted on safety in numbers but that wouldn't save him. Nothing would.

Soon it was done and she relaxed her hold on them. They'd fallen to the floor while she did her work, sound asleep, so now that she was done they sluggishly blinked awake, sitting up and groaning with hands on heads.

"Now that THIS is all taken care of," she said. "Rise." They stood, facing her with something approaching awe. "I'm guessing Higris invited you all here. So, this is what we're doing. All of us are staying in here, and brainstorming a way to get this ritual done." She held out the notebook and tossed it to Higris. "Let's get started."

The dozen mortals gathered around her, and they began working in earnest. Fourteen heads were better than one, and with their help the ritual design went along smoothly. At one point a maid came in wondering at the noise, but Sara just said they were colleagues helping her with a magical puzzle, which was entirely true.

"What if we put a dispersion matrix on the fourth quadrant? It would require redesigning the second spiral though."

"The channels for life magic need to be here, here, and here, each tuned to fifteen thousand thaums. Any idea on how we can get it that high?"

"The first stage requires six of you to cast the arcane version and the other six to cast in the shadow version. I've drawn the ordering, it'll rotate counterclockwise."

Step by step, minute by minute, hour by hour, they worked to complete the ritual. Outside, Northrend's peculiarly long days dragged on until the sky was dark and aflame with aurora. The magic expulsion process was completed. The infusion process was completed. The transplantation process was completed. With everyone blinking and half asleep, with the sun coming up the next day, the ritual was finally, _finally_ complete.

There were just a few problems. Namely, she needed four fully grown red dragons to complete it.

Sara tore off some sheets of the notebook and wrote down the necessary reagents on it, then distributed them to four of the cultists. "You four, you're in charge of gathering these materials. Meet back here once you have it all." Her belongings were slung onto the bed, so she walked over there and fished out a few bags of gold coins, tossing one to each of them. "This _should_ be enough to purchase it all. When you're done, come back here. The door will remain unlocked. In the meantime, everyone else!" She pointed to the others, including Higris. "We're going dragon hunting."

* * *

"My lord, are you certain this is wise?" Higris whispered from behind a snowbank.

 _My lord._ She could get used to that. All the same, she flattened him to the ice with her magic and silenced him. _'Shut up, you idiot!'_ she said with telepathy. _'Do you WANT the dragon to hear us?'_

_'My apologies. I was just wondering if, in your current state, you can manipulate dragon thoughts at all.'_

She scoffed internally. _'Dragons have larger brains and different cultures, but they're Titan-made like all the rest. It's simple.'_ Sara directed her telepathy over to the warlock in their group, a human man by the name of Toman. _'Get your felguard ready.'_

Getting to the dragon was the hard part. Finding a dragon nest in Dragonblight was surprisingly impossible, unless she wanted to break into the Ruby Dragonshrine. They were expertly hidden, especially with the demon invasion. _This_ one's nest was hidden in the mountains bordering Dragonblight and Wintergrasp. It had been hell finding it, and even more hell staking out in a hidden position waiting for the broodmother to return and check up on her eggs. But that was behind them. Now, she just needed to put on her acting skills. And hope that she could manipulate her levitation spell well enough to give the illusion of being able to walk.

They weren't currently within eyeshot of the nest. They were hidden in the snowy mountains, dressed in thick jackets to ward off the cold. The dragon's nest was hidden in a plateau a few turns away from where they crouched, cloaked with distraction gems.

Sara rose, silent as the grave, and readied herself. She turned around. There, Toman's felguard cracked its neck and grinned at her, baring a mouth full of needle fangs. The demon hefted its axe.

She held up her fingers, showing three. Then two, then one.

The demon roared and charged her, swinging its axe in a lazy arc. Sara stepped back, purposefully just not enough, and braced herself. The axe came up along her stomach, and the silver metal effortlessly sliced through her clothes and into the flesh beneath. The searing cold of Northrend was replaced by fiery pain and warm blood after an instant, and she screamed bloody murder, running away from the demon, towards the dragon nest.

She gathered breath in her lungs and screamed. "Help!" She turned a corner, ignoring the way the cut on her stomach burned and bled. The demon charged at her, knocking her off her feet and into the icy snow walls. Sara grunted, the wind knocked out of her. She was certain her right arm was broken by the landing, but that was fine. It'd make it more believable.

Sara kept running, the felguard keeping a leisurely pace behind her, laughing sadistically as it chased her. She got another narrow slice along her back, expertly avoiding anything important, and then she turned a corner in the mountains and saw the dragon's nest.

It was as if a pocket had been cleared away in Northrend's weather. The clearing had not a snowflake in sight, and was instead matted with fertile grass and overly vibrant flowers. All around it were dragon eggs, arranged into groups of two or three. They were nearly as tall as Sara herself, dull red and spiked. All in all, Sara had to estimate there were around two dozen of them. Sitting in the middle of the clearing was a red dragon, a veritable mountain of muscle and power. She was the spitting image of the blue dragon she'd seen months ago, except her scales were like the sunset, and the spikes on her legs were like amber instead of icicles.

"Help! Please help!" she shrieked, putting as much terror and desperation into her voice as was reasonable.

The dragon was instantly on all fours, wings extended fully with a snarl on her face. The dragon looked her way as she ran with a felguard on her tail, and the dragon's slit pupils grew even thinner. "Mortal!" she called out. "Duck!"

Sara listened and threw herself to the ground as the dragon snapped open her colossal jaws. The seeping chill of Northrend was blasted away in an instant as a fireball blew outwards and sailed over Sara's back, slamming into the felguard and sending it back to the nether. Sara wasn't worried about it trying to contact its superiors about her plan. After all, she'd mind controlled the demon.

She pushed herself up on her arms as the dragon approached, collapsing into the form of a high elf with red hair and fiery robes. "You are very lucky, young one." The shapeshifted dragon stopped closer to Sara and helped her up. "You are hurt, hold still. I will heal you." Sara braced herself for the nausea, but still struggled keeping down her lunch as the dragon's nature magic washed over her and healed the injuries. "There. Are you alright?" the dragon asked in a motherly tone.

_Now!_

Sara's magic filled the dragon's mind and, at the same time, she wriggled out of the reptiles' loose grip. The shapeshifted lizard's eyes went wide in horror... for just a moment. Then they glazed over as Sara went to work, twisting and breaking, threading and pulling at her mental lines. In minutes, it was done and she relaxed her magic, inspecting the brainwashed dragon. Her levitation spell evened out, and she floated up a short distance.

"Follow me, and stay in your mortal form."

She nodded, a distant look in her eyes. "Yes, master," she murmured, following Sara as she returned to the others. The dragon behind her smelled disgustingly of life magic, but the toasty warmth radiating from her made up for it.

In no time, Sara was back near the snowbank, dragon in tow. "See?" she told her minions. "Not a thing to worry about. She fell for it hook, line and sinker." It wasn't a _perfect_ plan. Demons rarely showed up on their own, and what would a mortal be doing in the mountains running from a stray demon? But red dragons were so goody-goody by nature, and Sara hadn't allowed her time to think things over.

"Alright," she said, turning on the dragon. "Here's the deal. I need you to bring three others of your kind into this vicinity, each about as powerful as you. One at a time is preferable. Bring them here, I'll enslave them, and then you'll get another. Do this without rousing _any_ suspicion, understand? Don't go for armies, go for personal friends." If dragons even _did_ that. She didn't know their culture.

The dragon, still in elf form, nodded. Then she shook her head hard and the distant look in her eyes was gone. "Understood, master," she said. "It will be done." She walked a safe distance from them and transformed back into a dragon. The red looked down at Sara. "Would you also like me to bring food and water, master?"

"We have plenty with us. Just bring three of your kind here without rousing _any_ suspicion. Act natural. Now go."

The dragon dipped her once-noble head and rose to her hind legs, wings flapping. Then she took off, still beating her wings and forcing Sara to shield her face from the wind. Then the dragon under her control flew off into the distance.

Turning back to her minions, she grinned. "Well, that went well," she said. "Now that we aren't in danger of being spotted by her, let's set up camp. Higris, Fanos, get a fire going. You two, no I don't know your names. You get the tents up. Your three, once the fire's done start making dinner. The rest of you, take this time to relax."

Now that Sara had some time off, she could wander around and take in what was going on. She wasn't strictly _touching_ the ground, but she was close enough that the power of Yogg-Saron still rushed into her body, empowering her every spell. Her heart hammered in excitement. This was happening. She was actually going through with this. She could still stop whenever she wanted, the others were firmly mind controlled by her, but _then_ what? Besides, she didn't want to stop. She didn’t want to go to Wymrest and pledge to empower the Aspects. She _wanted_ to see this though.

She wanted to be a god again.

Dinner was made before the red dragon came back. Sara treated to herself to some mutton stew, perfectly spiced so that it tickled her nose. It filled her stomach and radiated warmth throughout her being. _Then_ the dragons came back.

They were taken by surprise as the two giant lizards dropped in. The one she'd enslaved shifted back to her mortal form, but the other eyed their camp warily, still in his true form.

"Helistrasza, I don't understand. Your eggs are fine and these mortals seem perfectly al... right..." he said, trailing off when Sara abruptly forced her powers into his mind. He bowed his forelegs and dropped his head near the ground, breathing harshly through his nostrils. The lines of his thoughts raced to try and push Sara out, but he was trying to fight the wrong _type_ of mind control, so she wasn't deterred at all. In no time, it was done.

"Same instructions as before," she told the one mortal formed dragon and the one recovering dragon. "Go find another member of your flight, roughly as powerful as you are, and bring them back here. Do _not_ rouse any suspicion, and _DO NOT_ bring them back at the same time as each other. Find a way to work around each other."

They bowed their heads and affirmed her orders. The female dubbed 'Helistrasza' shifted back, making the mountain pass quite crowded, and then the two dragons took off. Hopefully, they'd be back with two more.

Time passed. The sun descended and her minions retired for the night, holed up in tents and sleeping bags. Sara remained awake, hovering just above the ice and staring at the aurora in awe as she awaited the dragons' return. The air still smelled of spices and meat, and far above her, wind howled as it passed through the mountainous border. Her magic supported her with ease, letting Sara go limp as she waited.

Her patience was rewarded. The flapping of wings was her only warning, and she glanced up to see two dragons drop down and change back into mortal forms. One became a human man, and the other a night elven woman. "Alright," the woman said. "Are these the mortals you wanted me to check out?"

 _That's the new one,_ she surmised, and minutes later she had three dragons enslaved to her will.

"Go into the tents and stay hidden until I say so," she explained. "Try to minimize noise." They bowed their heads and did as she told them.

Not long later, Helistrasza returned with her second victim, who instantly shifted into an orcish man and introduced himself to her as 'Kelistrasz'. Then she enslaved _him_ too, and everything was ready.

"Everyone out!" she shouted at the tents. There was a clamor, but before long everyone came out. In truth, she didn't need to bring that many of her servants with her, but she didn't want to leave them unsupervised if she didn't have to. "I've got what we came for," she said, gesturing to the four shapeshifted dragons. "Here's what happens next. Pack everything up while I'm talking!" They sprung into action. "We hearthstone back to A Hero's Welcome and get the others. Hopefully they'll have collected the reagents by now. Once that's done, we're headed for Ulduar! We'll take some time to get our gear and supplies replenished, then we're off."

She pointed to the dragons. "The winds up in the Storm Peaks don't like hippogriffs, so the dragons are going to be the ones carrying us. Now, we don't have hearthstones for the four of you so you'll be pairing up. Helistrasza, you go with Higris. Kelistrasz, with Toman. You go with Zefin, and you go with Mira." She fished into her robes and pulled out her own hearthstone. In that time, the dragons got into position with worry tugging on their faces. No surprise, sharing hearthstones was a distinctly unpleasant experience. "On three!" she ordered. "One, two, three!"

Sara placed her palm on the hearthstone, and it began to activate. Her servants all did the same, filling the air with the sound of charging magic. Then they were whisked away to Dalaran, leaving two dozen red eggs with no caretaker.

They reappeared in Dalaran and wasted no time getting ready. They headed up to her room, earning a few odd looks, and entered. To Sara's surprise, the mortals she had sent to gather reagents were already there, sitting on the bed and chatting amicably with each other. There were a few bags on the ground.

"I hope that, since you're slacking off like this, it means you have everything I requested?" she asked as she locked the door behind her.

A dwarven man hopped off the bed and bowed to her. "Rightly so, O Great One." _O Great One, I like it,_ she thought. "Twenty four sha crystals, ten vials of dream powder, thirteen runed arcane rods, one hundred shards each of crystallized shadow and life..." The dwarf rattled off the reagents, and Sara checked them off her mental list.

Soon, he reached the end and she nodded. "Excellent. Gather them up." She made an arm motion at the four red dragons, who were looking around both nervously and curiously. "These are the four red dragons. They'll be transporting us to Ulduar. I want you to go with them and buy whatever materials they need to make harnesses for us so they can carry us. Meet us at the teleportation crystal. We'll be using it to head down to Crystalsong, get a good distance from Dalaran, and then travel the rest of the way via dragon." She clapped her hands, ignoring the spike of pain it sent through her. "Move!"

They sprung into action.

She turned to the other mortals. "As for the rest of you, my orders haven't changed. It gets extremely inhospitable near Ulduar. Go and gather what materials you need to survive the trip." She fished out a few more pouches of gold. She was running out of the gold left over from her conjuration in Shattrath, but it'd last long enough. "Again, meet back up near the crystal. I'll head there now and await you."

Once everyone filed out, Sara took a deep breath and massaged her eyes. The lack of sleep was starting to make her eyes burn, but she could handle a day or two more if she had to. She'd catch a nap on the flight. In the meantime, she took off her jacket and switched it for one that _hadn't_ been sliced to ribbons by a felguard.

She hovered out of the inn and took a look around Dalaran. There was little traffic this late at night, which suited her just fine. As she started to float through the streets, Sara's thoughts began to wander.

Her heart hammered nervously in her chest and her stomach twisted in worry. She was still racing the clock. First of all, she didn't think her actions would remain unnoticed forever, and _eventually_ people would be on her tail. That wasn't something she worried about though, the entire world was focused on the Legion and she had a massive head start. However, she _was_ racing the Legion. With Kil'jaeden's arrival, there was no position Azeroth could hold for long. She was furiously racing him, and while she was confident he had no idea what she was doing, that she could change back before he did too much harm...

... despite all that, Sara worried.

She worried something she hadn't even thought to account for would stop her. She worried that everything was going too easily, so she had messed up somewhere along the way even though the chain of events meant it _made sense_ it was going easily. She worried her health would fail her before she could do it. She worried they _wouldn't_ get the ritual done on the first try and something horrible would happen. She worried about so many things. And she worried over whether or not she even should be doing this.

Sara was afraid. Maybe Leira was right, and she shouldn't do this.

She shook her head and clenched her fingers. No. No time for doubts. Leira was _wrong._ This was the only way. Screw her methods, Sara was objectively doing the right thing. And besides, she was so... so _tired._

She was tired of being afraid, she was tired of losing to the demons, and she was tired of being a human.

This was what she had to do. This was what she _wanted_ to do, wanted so badly it crept into her dreams, wanted so badly it burned in her soul. Sara brought her attention back to Dalaran and kept heading for the teleportation crystal.

Just a few more days. She just had to wait a few more days...


	33. Chapter 32: I am Become Death...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Kil'jaeden

  


With Moonglade burning behind him, Kil'jaeden took the time to reassess his path.

The major points of interest left were Hyjal, Teldrassil, Exodar, the Ironforge/Gnomeragon complex, and Northrend. These would all be heavily defended, which was precisely why he was _not_ going to crush them.

While Azeroth was the only world to have ever repelled the Legion, it was not the only one that had ever given them difficulties. In ages past, whenever Archimonde encountered such a vexing world and couldn't muster the resources to summon Sargeras, he went for a different strategy. Burn the crops. Befoul the land. Plague earth and sky so that nothing will ever grow, and simply starve the world's population before sweeping up the leftovers. And that was what Kil'jaeden would do.

He would not get greedy. He would not walk into a trap, believing himself invincible. The Burning Legion's military was now firmly established on the world, so instead of, say, rushing headlong into Hyjal and getting blown up by wisps, or going north to Wyrmrest and encountering all four Aspects, he was going to be patient.

Kil'jaeden had all the time in the world. Duck the Kingslayers, dodge the Aspects. Defile and incinerate Darkshore, Ashenvale, everything, while keeping the mortals holed up in their fortresses. He was going to do this _right._

* * *

Leira

  


Leira's head was foggy as she went for breakfast.

She blinked hard as she made herself buttered toast, trying to clear it. She was on some medication, but it'd been bothering her for a while, ever since she'd moved into Shattrath at Sara's request. Must've been allergies or something. Outland had all sorts of native plantlife that you couldn't find anywhere on Azeroth.

The draenei laid the slices of bread on her plate and sat at the table, nibbling on them and drinking her herbal tea. It was supposed to help with her head, but so far it wasn't doing anything. She finished up her breakfast and headed out of her house, locking it behind herself with the key.

It was a nice house, she had to admit. Dusty, but nothing she couldn't clean. The neighborhood was on the dangerous side, but between the peacekeepers and her own warrior training, Leira didn't have to fear for her life even in the dead of night. Especially not now, in broad daylight.

She took off down the road, greeting people around her with 'good mornings' and 'how are you?'s. She didn't know any of them yet, but she _was_ learning. She'd have to learn, if this was to be her home, if this was to be where she got a job. Sure she could live off the conjuration ritual Sara had left, but she didn't want to depend on the Old God for everything.

Old God... was she forgetting something?

Leira turned a few corners and headed towards the nearest temple of the Light. She hadn't gotten to be able to do it much during the war, but she always liked to come to a temple and bask in the Holy Light's presence. The temple in question was in the Lower City's eastern quadrant, and while technically the naaru A'dal was closer, she didn't want to bother it. The temple was tall and grand, with Shattrath City's greenish metal wrapped around its outside. It was shaped like a miniature Terrace of Light, except no fountain of energy poured from its spire.

Leira walked in the front door just in time. There was already a congregation gathering in the circular innards, sitting in pews framed with brass and bowing their heads. In the center of the room, surrounded by arcs of seats, was a draenic woman dressed up in priestess robes, her hands raised as she chanted. The sigil of the naaru floated before her head, and above her was a shimmering orb of golden energy.

She quietly clip-clopped over to an empty seat and wordlessly took her place there. She bowed her head and extended her mind to the Holy Light. She sighed as its warmth brushed over her head and soothed her limbs. It was like a long day at the spa. Leira could never tire of this.

Something pushed at her head. She ignored it, and focused on the warm embrace of the Holy Light around her. It was the most glorious thing she'd ever been given the privilege to experience, time and time again, and she just couldn't understand why such an omnipotent being would give even the slightest bit of attention to just some woman who'd not even seen her third decade.

The pressure continued, and she winced. But then it came again, and with it came the warm, soothing presence of the Holy Light. It didn't speak to her audibly, or even with telepathy as Sara sometimes did. It spoke to her directly in concepts, it spoke to her by making her suddenly _know_ things she didn't know before. It was trying to help her, she suddenly knew. It had detected something wrong with her, it was trying to undo something that had been done to her, it was trying to make her relax because this could get uncomfortable. The pressure kept growing, and it was like her head was splitting apart.

Leira was getting stares as she groaned into her hands, twitching slightly as the Holy Light pushed against her more and more, invited by her faith and trust, and then something deep, deep in her soul was _rewritten_ and -

_SNAP!_

Then it was over. Everything was the same as before. Leira opened her eyes and looked around, blinking. "I'm fine," she reassured those around her. "The Holy Light was just particularly intense today." That was an understatement. That feeling, of her thoughts changing around her, it was almost like the feeling of when Sara -

 _Sara_.

Her stomach did a flip. Leira stood and bolted out, not pausing for anything. She needed to get to the Terrace of Light.

 _That bitch!_ she raged internally. _I can't believe she actually fucking mind controlled me!_

Leira put her endurance to the test and ran. She knocked aside pedestrians and barreled through stands, but _who cared_ about all of that when the world was going to end? She thanked the Light for clearing her mind and undoing Sara's magic, and made it to the Terrace of Light in record time.

She came rushing in through one of the gates and looked around frantically. After a moment she found what she was looking for and made tracks to get it. She didn't know if Ironforge was still intact, but if Shattrath was keeping its portal open then it must've been alright. Leira didn't pay attention to the peacekeepers staring at her, or the way the blessed naaru A'dal swiveled its body to face her, or the way the energy being's body parts came together and rubbed as if it were shivering. All that mattered was getting to the portal right away.

The shimmering arcane gate stumbled into her vision. She took a moment to confirm it was the right portal, and dove into it headfirst. Leira swam through the arcane currents and braced herself for the sudden drop. When the portal travel ended, the warrior dropped into a roll and came up sprinting through the Mystic Ward. Should she find help there? No, she needed to get right to the military. It would take time for someone in the Mystic Ward to get there, why spend the time?

Leira felt like she sprinted the entire way to the Military Ward, and by the time she got there she was soaked with sweat. She doubled over and took a few heaving gasps for breath to try and clear the exhausted buzzing in her head. Her toast nearly came back up and she gagged, but forced it back down with an iron will.

She looked around the Military Ward. There were a few people out running errands. Some guards, some casters, some warriors and paladins. She found the nearest person and ran up to him. He was a dwarven man, with bright red hair and a beard to be spoken of in legends. At the moment his back was to her and he was dressed in casuals, but the presence of the Light was thick about him.

"Sir!" she shouted, and he turned around. She stumbled to him and caught her breath. "Sir, sir it's an emergency. It's, it's - "

"Whoa there lass," he said, coming closer and holding her up so she didn't collapse. "Take a moment and breathe!"

"We don't have a moment," she wheezed. "Damn it, I might even be too late. It's the end of the world, it's - "

"Hang on a moment!" the dwarf shouted, grinning at her through a mouth nearly swallowed by facial hair. "You're Leira! Well by my beard what's got you in a tizzy? I've not seen ya since Silithus!"

She focused on him. "Fardol? Huh. Wait, you're in Paradox right?"

"Aye..." he said slowly, cautiously. "What's this about the end of the world? You got somethin' about the demons?"

What? Demons? Demons were the _furthest_ thing from her mind. "No, no. It's Sara." The blood instantly drained from the man's face. "She sent me to Shattrath with mind control, but I broke out. She's going to bring back Yogg-Saron. She could be in Ulduar _right now,_ and believe me she can do it."

"Sara Smithers?" he whispered. "She's bringin' back an Old God?"

"She _is_ the Old God," Leira said.

"Damn it all I was right!" he shouted, throwing a punch at the air. "I hate it when I'm right! Leira, follow me! We gotta _move!_ "

The paladin started running, and Leira was right behind him. She just hoped they weren't too late.

* * *

Sara

  


Sara stood atop one of the female dragons' neck, hands wrapped around a horn as she stared at the scene in front of her. Ulduar, in all its glory. Metal pillars rose to the heavens, stone streets defied the snow. And hidden deep, deep within was her prize.

"Alright," she announced to the others. "Here's how this is going to go down. Ulduar has a lot of potential safety mechanisms, but most of them aren't our problem. For instance, the reorigination mechanism. It'll still be attuned to Algalon, who's gone rogue so his death won't signal the Pantheon, and the reorigination device itself was destroyed. The signals to call the Watchers back to Ulduar are designed to go off if Yogg-Saron tries to get out, not if it tries to _get in._ We're flying over them with distraction gems and once we're at the transporter we go in. Dragons, you switch back to mortal forms then."

She continued speaking. "Once inside, the time for stealth is over. We burn our way _straight_ to the prison of Yogg-Saron. We aren't breaking the glass dome though, we're going through the Descent into Madness. After that we'll be in the prison, and we go from there. Ready, dragons?"

The lizards muttered their confirmations. "Then let's go!"

With the sound of giant wings flapping, the four red wyrms launched from the mountainside. They glided down a narrow slope, then pulled up into the sky to approach Ulduar. This was so similar to when she'd come here with Derestrasz. Except now her mission was far more pressing, and only one person was going to leave the Titan prison. It was far quicker too; the sharply angled maze of corridors beneath them passed by far quicker than they had when she rode on a drake.

In no time at all they were descending, and Sara had to fight to keep a familiar lump in her throat from rising. The vast number of iron soldiers had not abated. But it also didn't seem to have grown, so her last visit to Ulduar apparently had not caused too big of a stir. She was not afraid. Her magic was an order of magnitude stronger compared to when she'd last been here, and she had four red dragons enslaved to her will instead of one drake.

They landed as quietly as four hulking dragons could, and once they got off the lizards they shifted into their mortal forms. As one, they approached the humming teleporter and were whisked away to the innards of Ulduar. Sara was the first one in, hovering inside and letting the arcane magic take over her body.

When the power faded away, she was in the antechamber of Ulduar, still shrouded with her magic.

"Not for long," she whispered, before dispelling the distraction aura. Suddenly, a half dozen iron dwarves saw her appear and charged her. Sara simply raised her left hand to her right ear and charged it with bright green magic, then unleashed a cresting wave of Old God power over them. The sheer quantity of her magic scraped painfully on her bones, but it didn't matter how much she damaged her body now. Just as long as it got to the end. The dwarves fell to the ground, dead as doornails.

The others finished teleporting in just as Sara finished thrashing two stone watchers. They weren't nearly as powerful as she had feared.

"Alright, march forward," she ordered. As an afterthought, she flicked her wrist and summoned her shadowy barrier. It was so easy to do it, here. The power of her old body coursed through the halls. It seeped through the cracks in the stone and filled the air, as tangible as a ghost and as pervasive as air. Her servants followed after her, packs filled with everything they needed to finish the ritual.

The Antechamber posed little difficulty for them. Now that Sara was here a second time, she took more time to take in the sights. The architecture was truly impressive. Brasses and reds, blues and golds, it all blended together perfectly. The designs were stylistic, the constellation holograms breathtaking. It was perhaps the most gilded cage to have ever been built, and she would take _great_ pleasure in tearing it down brick by brick for daring to have imprisoned _her!_

They reached the top of the Antechamber's stairwell and trekked across the walkway to the Observation Ring. It was just as colossal as she remembered, a room the size of a city with what looked like an empty hourglass blocking entry to the prison of Yogg-Saron. More stone watchers stood here, guarding the exits to each of the four Watchers' lairs. But the Watchers wouldn't be here, they'd be outside in the Storm Peaks, at their respective towers. Not in Ulduar.

Not close enough to stop her if they tried.

More stone watchers roared and came after her. She was tempted to tell the red dragons to change back and rip them to shreds, but she couldn't risk their lives. She needed all the mana she could get for the ritual, but mana could be replenished. Even with her resurrection magic, now wasn't the time to take chances. Maybe she was just being paranoid. All the same, she took the brunt of their attention while the others pelted them with magic from afar.

Then Ulduar was quiet and still. Far in the distance, living plants went about their lives in the Conservatory of Life. Boombots would be circling around the Spark of Imagination, iron soldiers would be gleefully watching a gladiator match in the Clash of Thunder, and ice elementals would be rumbling up and down the Halls of Winter. Apathy would set in, because they weren't needed to guard the prison's inmate anymore.

Far to the left, away from all of it, was her goal. She was so close she licked her lips.

She made the trip in silence. They passed through the hallway, and her minions swiveled their heads left and right to take in the sight of the stained glass windows. Then they came upon the first faceless corpse.

Sara came to a halt and, still hovering, held up a hand to order her minions to stop. She drifted closer to the faceless one's body. She placed a hand on its scaly forehead and moved it around. She poked its trunk, then backed away and lit up her magic, extending it into the faceless one.

It had died over two and a half decades ago, but its soul was as close to the body as if it were freshly dead. And despite the draconic size of the monstrosity, moving its soul was as easy as moving a tauren's. The faceless one had waited for her. Its soul _wanted_ to be manipulated by her, and that was exactly what she did, fusing body and soul and jolting the faceless creature back to life with a flash of death magic.

The beast sprung to its feet and bellowed triumphantly. The others with her took a step back, but Sara didn't flinch. She stared up at it, and it turned its head to face her. Then it spoke, gesturing with both arms to the air. The sounds were wretched and gurgled, exactly like the language was meant to be.

"Zaix Yogg-Saron!" it bellowed. "Ilfah qam! Qwaz arwi Shath'Yar!"

She snapped her fingers and gestured to the others. "K'yi hoq. Hoq'qam woth'gl'Vezax, hoqm'igl ma hoq'gag qam'hoq shezk'trgl," she explained. Her accent was no doubt atrocious, but she could be understood.

The faceless raised both arms and scissored them around the base of its head. "Gag iggksh'maq, Yogg-Saron!" It plodded back to her side and she resumed floating forward.

"Don't get left behind," she shouted over her shoulder to the others. "I'll revive the faceless, and they will cover our path. Now quit gawking and follow me!" she shouted, growing impatient with anticipation.

With the towering faceless one at her side, she felt far more at ease as she descended towards her old prison. The bodies of dead mortals littered the ground, too far gone for her to revive. They continued their descent. Sara simply floated down the gaps and the faceless one, with its colossal height, took them as hops. The dragons shifted back to their true forms to flap down, and the mortals helped each other, stepping carefully onto various slabs of stone. They came across another faceless corpse, and she resurrected that one too. It followed at her right, as opposed to her left.

Before long, they came into the chamber containing General Vezax's corpse. She first revived the two faceless flanking him, then approached the faceless general. Her first time around, she'd felt a pang of sadness to see such an ancient being felled by something that was supposed to be far below him. Now, she was filled with nothing but grim determination as she forced her magic into him. She found his soul and grabbed it in imaginary fingers, pulling it back the short trip to his body. She fixed the wounds. She fixed the gashes and the brain damage and more until his body was pristine, death energy pouring off his armored plates. The great and terrible General Vezax pushed himself up with his pincers and roared to the heavens.

Then he saw her and instantly remembered his place, bowing as deeply as his stocky body would allow.

"Woth'gl'Vezax, hoq'qam," she said. "Hoqm'igl ma hoq'gag qam'hoq shezk'trgl. Ilfah'maq YWAQ'iggksh nwah ghs ma _ag'tkksa!_ " she explained, punctuating her command by clenching her hand into a fist.

He nodded. "Gag ytwa, ez vem vwah! Qi'agth vhesplah ilfah'plkez. Thoq fssh Yogg-Saron!"

It took her a few moments longer to give the orders to the lesser faceless. They fell into place beside General Vezax, and she treated herself to draining some of the general's mana. What was he going to do, refuse her?

Once she was at full mana, she led her group past the faceless and into the prison of Yogg-Saron where, for the first time, they caught a glimpse of the Beast with a Thousand Maws.

One by one, they all threw up.

"Are you finished?" she asked eventually. "Good." She looked back at the entry, where the faceless were already sculpting saronite into impassible barriers. "The faceless will fortify our backs just in case. Dragons, get over there - yes, to the dead Old God, I don't care if you feel sick - and start healing it. It won't react to your magic." She wouldn't react. "There should be the normal injuries associated with trauma, cuts, and magic. You're also looking for an enormous amount of brain damage. Don't try to revive it, just make the body as pristine as you possibly can."

"Meanwhile," she continued. "Higris, Elma, get the dream dust ready. You twelve, get over there and practice your parts of the ritual; we'll only have one shot at this so we need to get this right on the first go. Setting this thing up is going to take all day, so let's get started."

* * *

Ellemayne

  


She could hardly believe she was setting foot in Ulduar again.

Especially not for the same reason she'd gone there the first time.

Yogg-Saron was coming back. The call had come out from a trusted member of Paradox. The hard-and-fast evidence was circumstantial, just some Old God magic glyphs in a few members of a guild, but the accounts from both Fardol Brighthammer and Leira Vindalis painted a terrible, terrible picture. And since the Liberality Confederacy was making no progress against the Legion _anyway,_ they'd gone storming to Ulduar via portal as fast as physically possible.

An emerging Old God had just a _little_ more priority than the demons.

They finished teleporting into the Antechamber, and right away Ellemayne had a bad feeling about this. Iron soldiers littered the ground, inanimate. There was no evidence of any kind of injury, so whoever did this had powerful magic.

"Move forward!" Turaniles shouted. "Pack up!"

Ellemayne nodded and reached into herself. She focused, and called upon the aspect of a pack of animals. The magic radiated into her allies, and their feet thundered hard as they tore down the Antechamber.

The bodies of iron constructs passed them on either side as they went up the stairs of the Antechamber. Around her, the members of her guild who hadn't been part of their Ulduar expedition - mostly due to youth, it _had_ been twenty-five years ago - swung their heads in all direction as they marveled at the sights. They finished climbing the stairs and raced across the reconstructed walkway to the inner sanctum.

Ellemayne gasped. The last time she was here, the glass casing of Yogg-Saron's prison had been shattered and the pieces of glass hovered in the air via magic. Now, the glass casing was fully repaired, and there was some sort of green shell on the inside. Protective magic.

"We go around!" their guild leader shouted. "Magera, you stay here! See if you can't find a way past the barrier! Everyone else follow me!"

As they went around, Ellemayne chanced a glance down the hole. There was an enormous ritual circle set up, and four mortals were spewing nurturing flames onto the corpse of Yogg-Saron. They had to get down there, right away.

They ignored the four corridors and plunged down the fifth, through a shower curtain of astral lights and down the descent into madness. Bodies were tossed aside, and levitation spells were put in place to help them get down the steep drops easily. They descended, lower and lower. The lights grew darker and putrid darkness clung to the air, forcing her to breathe harshly through her nose despite sprinting the entire, unimaginable size of Ulduar.

Multicolored glass hung in the air, slowly rotating. The tiles were dark and covered in some sort of black sludge. Saronite growths clung to the walls and corners, making her head throb just by looking at them. Then they arrived in the last chamber of the descent, right before the prison of Yogg-Saron. Right before the ritual.

Right with General Vezax.

They gathered up as the colossal general and his four lesser faceless subordinates faced them down. She could see the passage behind him, and it was entirely clogged up with greenish rocks. Eight shards of saronite vapor floated around him, four for each pincer. From between the cracks of his armor came an aura of despair, washing over her and forcing her to think defeatist thoughts. They were too late. Their cause was hopeless. They could never leave this place.

"General Vezax," Turaniles hissed. "Avoid the shadow crashes, if you're a caster and not a healer stand in the residue they leave behind. If you get marked, get away. Don't let him cast a fire spell, and conserve your mana. Those green clouds can restore it but don't stand in them too long."

But then the green clouds were swirling together, and Ellemayne gulped. They hadn't done that the last time they fought General Vezax. The enormous faceless cackled as the vapors swirled and condensed into a monstrous form, like a purple water elemental made entirely of profound darkness. It instantly began to radiate shadow energy, and even from so far away the vileness of the magic made the night elf gag.

"Behold now!" he gurgled in triumph as a saronite barrier enveloped him. "Terror, absolute!"

They charged.

* * *

Sara

  


A red dragon disguised as a human man approached her. "Master, we've uh, we're done." His face was somewhat green and he swayed uneasily. "The body has been made as pristine as possible. Internal and external damage has been repaired, but we haven't been able to heal the tooth damage, since it's impaling itself with its own fangs."

"That's fine," she explained, moving a piece of crystalized life just a smidgen to the right. "Go with the other dragons and wait for us to finish this up." She turned her head over and glared at him. " _Don't. Touch. Anything._ "

Suddenly, the dragon turned his head to the heavens, staring up the glass dome. General Vezax had summoned a saronite barrier over it, keeping anyone from coming down the easy way. "Master, I hear something. Mortals, running."

"What?!" she shouted, floating away from the ritual and rounding on the lizard. She forced herself to breathe in deeply. Stay calm. Stay calm. General Vezax and the faceless could hold off any intruders. The ritual was almost done anyway, they could do this.

She made a few final preparations for the ritual and nodded. "Alright everyone, this is it! Get into formation, we're reviving Yogg-Saron right now!" The words felt so foreign on her tongue. Was this happening? Was she really doing this?

The ritual circle was rather elaborate. It consisted of a central ring, which had thirteen circles on its edge where people could stand. Higris stood on one of them, and six people lined up to either side of him. On the inside were various reagents; sha crystals, crystalized life and shadow, and more. They were all crushed to powder and smeared along the circle into runic formations. The circle had four spokes on its outside that led to larger rings, and each of those rings had an unshifted red dragon sit on its haunches within. Sara sat at the center of it all, breathing deeply, with a dagger in her hands.

_Boom! Boom!_

They turned around and looked at the wall of saronite keeping the gate locked. There was fighting out there. Sara turned back to them and waved her hands, forcing herself to remain calm. "Ignore that. General Vezax will hold. We're doing this on three. One, two, three!" The twelve cultists apart from Higris raised their hands. Half of them began to brim with arcane light, and the others with shadow. "Urgh!" Sara forced herself to sit upright as vast torrents of her own magic pooled in her fingertips and flowed outwards, drained from her body to fuel the ritual.

Once every drop of Sara's magic was gone, the ritual advanced. Liquid darkness condensed around the four dragons, and stabbed at their hearts. They roared, but collapsed limply in their own circles. Rivers of mana and life energy flowed forth from their corpses, swirling around the ritual's main circle and accreting in an orb above Sara's head. The reagents around her combusted, and their smoke rose to join the sphere.

The cultists began to switch their spells, going from arcane to shadow and back in a complex, shifting pattern. Higris joined in, and what felt like a vacuum opened above Yogg-Saron. It tugged her soul harshly. She needed to get over there. That was where she was _meant_ to be.

The ritual would take Sara's soul, put it into Yogg-Saron's body, and allow it to merge by giving it a kickstart of life energy. To get her soul there, though, Sara needed to die.

She raised the dagger to her heart, winced, and pushed it in as hard as she could. She trembled in shock as a pillar of burning pain exploded from the spot, and warm blood began to trickle down her robes, but she just closed her eyes and let it happen. In moments her head buzzed, and then she tipped over and hit the ground. Sara breathed out once, and died.

This was it. Moment of no return.

Her soul emerged in an instant, and the ritual was ready for her. Arcane light circled around her soul's dark purple wrists and supported it, giving it the strength to be visible in the mortal realm. Sara turned featureless eyes on Higris as the ritual continued, dragging her across the room until she hovered just above Yogg-Saron's head.

She glanced down, at the dark violet feet above the armored plates of a god. Then she looked back at the ritual, with the corpses of four dragons littering the scene. The cultists began dying too, their life energy sacrificed to fuel the ritual, one by one until only Higris remained. His hands blazed with arcane energy as he slowly turned around, arms out as if gripping an enormous ball. The orb of magic and life energy moved with him, and then it was flowing towards her.

Sara began to lower. The arcane bindings on her wrists eased her body down, and soon her feet vanished inside Yogg-Saron's head. She shivered in... worry? Anticipation? Fulfillment? She didn't know. This was all out of her hands now. Whatever happened, happened. The ritual had every safeguard she could dream up, but now all she could do was pray it'd either be enough, or not be necessary.

Life energy rushed into her like a river, battle sounds raged outside, and her soul went lower and lower as more scorching hot life was pumped into her, and her soul felt like it was going to _burst_ from the meal. Her head vanished inside Yogg-Saron, and for a moment she was blind.

This was the turning point. This would be known either as Azeroth's greatest triumph, or its greatest catastrophe. History would be rewritten around this day. Whatever came next, the years to come would mark _this_ moment as 'zero'.

She was Sara.

She was the size of a human.

She was the size of a cottage.

She was the size of a dragon.

It was the size of a city.

It was the size of a kingdom.

It was the size of a continent.

It was Yogg-Saron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, Sara completes her long journey from OC, to canon.


	34. Chapter 33: ... the Destroyer of Worlds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

  
**Yogg-Saron**  


  


Oh yes.

_Oohhh yyeeessss!_

How could it have ever worried? How could it have ever doubted? There was no mechanism to swallow and replace its consciousness. There was no trap waiting to destroy its memories of its time as a mortal. How could it have ever thought it would do that to itself?

Everything was so clear now. Everything was so... so _right._ Yogg-Saron's thoughts raced so smoothly now. It was as if its time as a human had been spent submerged in muddy water, but now everything was clear and sparkling. All the issues it had worried over, all the problems it hadn't been able to solve, they seemed so laughable. Trivial. Insignificant. It was a god again, truly a god, and the last of the soul power finished infusing its being as it regained full control over its body, its glorious, endless, body with more limbs than its old self could count and -

_PAIN!_

Yogg-Saron's main mouth opened in shock as a flash of agony rippled across its body, stemming all the way from the curled up tentacles in Borean Tundra, Grizzly Hills, and all other places under Northrend.

It was suddenly so aware that it was still imprisoned beneath the earth, with billions upon billions of tons of stone and dirt and ice weighing upon its body, choking what it had for circulation. It was aware of how tired it was, how even with more mana than its human body had ever possessed, it was such a small fraction of what magic it _should_ have. It was aware of its thousands of stomachs rumbling with hunger, for it had not feasted upon souls in so many thousands of years. It was aware of the holes its own fangs had left in its mouth, dripping black blood. It was aware of the preternatural muscles in its vast body coiled and knotted together, aches and pains magnified over a body so large it conformed to the curvature of the planet.

It needed to get _out._

Yogg-Saron's head was just out of earth, tasting fresh air and light. It made to lurch its entire body, and felt hardly anything. Muscles strained against unyielding stone, and nothing gave way. Dragonblight was undisturbed. Icecrown was intact. It needed to start small.

_Crack!_

The saronite wall that General Vezax had erected shattered, and two dozen mortals spilled in. It looked their way, and it was so _strange_ because it didn't have eyes, rather its entire body projected some form of magical sonar that washed over them. Yogg-Saron didn't just see their fronts as they approached. It saw their backs, it saw their brains, their hearts, it saw every individual atom of each and every one of them. It could make out the details of their memories, it could decipher the data into meaning. Then the mortals opened fire upon it.

Yogg-Saron tried to lurch its head back as the first volley fell upon it. Chaos bolts, pyroblasts, enchanted arrows and blasts of nature and Light. It braced itself for a wave of nauseating pain, and was shocked to find it barely felt a thing. The magic blasts popped ineffectually against its skin with little more than scorch marks. The only actual attacks that stung were the ones that found their way into its main mouth. They blasted against the inside of its gullet and it growled lowly in its throat.

The second volley of the mortals, the _Kingslayers,_ was on its way and their melee was approaching. No time for diplomacy. No time for making nice. No time for defending itself. Their attacks were irrelevant for now. It had other priorities.

Getting out.

It needed to start small, so that was exactly what it did. Yogg-Saron focused on its head, on the snake neck that was coiled up beneath Ulduar, and heaved. The pool of liquid saronite around its head trembled. The mortals lost their footing as a tremor went through the ground, but nothing gave. Yogg-Saron tried again, straining muscles that had, at their peak, snapped mountains like twigs. _Then_ something happened.

Yogg-Saron's head rose from the earth, and its long neck followed afterward. The neck was covered in limp mouths and armor plates, pustules that contained diminishing gas, tentacles for constricting, tentacles for magic, tentacles for crushing. They all hung limp as it rose its head up and up and _up,_ stone and saronite tumbling from its body to the ground as it rose with such force that the earth actually bent upwards, while collapsing in other places it moved its mass away from. Bodies of dragons, faceless, and cultists were tossed aside as it rose.

Now that its head was atop a thick stalk of a neck, swaying back and forth and so tall it nearly touched the glass ceiling, it looked down at the mortals launching desperate spells and blades upon its head and neck. They stung, certainly, and if it just sat there the attacks would add up, but it still had to marvel.

 _This_ was the Liberality Confederacy? _This_ was the band of mortals that had slain Illidan? That the Lich King himself had called 'the greatest fighting force Azeroth had ever known'? _These_ were the people that had killed it before? How? They were so small, scurrying about like ants as it slowly rotated its head, looking at each of them in turn and revealing every aspect of their souls to it.

It sent some feeling into its corruptor tentacles. A few of them twitched, but most of them stayed limp. Yogg-Saron still needed to work on coordination. It tried again, and moving a hundred tentacles just felt so right, so much more than moving legs and fingers ever had. The Kingslayers had fought against maybe a dozen of its tentacles, and not all at once. Now it had raised so much more of its body, exposed so many dozens of tentacles, they couldn't stand a chance. And yet...

... it had made a promise to _try_ and reign itself in.

Yogg-Saron found its vocal cords and reared back to stare at the mortals, who continued their onslaught. "That is enough," it said, and it was such a surprise. Its voice was so powerful, reverberating. It filled the room. It demanded respect and attention. It was... surprisingly masculine, too. That would take some getting used to. "This isn't what I'm here for - " A shadow bolt went into one of its smaller mouths. "Stop that," it growled.

They didn't stop.

 _Well, I tried,_ it thought lazily. _Seems violence is the only answer people understand._

It fired up its tentacles. Corruptors swung in slow, lazy arcs, brimming with shadow magic. For a moment it had trouble coordinating so many limbs, and it 'only' fired two dozen shadow bolts after two seconds of casting. The mortals that were hit buckled under the power, but intricate webs of healing magic washed over the victims and rejuvenated them.

Yogg-Saron focused, and this time every single one of its exposed corruptor tentacles went into action. Not even a second and a half later it began pelting the mortals with curses of doom and apathy afflictions like hail, plagues and poisons like rain. Purple and green bolts flew out from its long neck, and it began to move more and more of its body out, but it was already so high that it was forced to curl itself around, forming a spiral coil in the air as more and more of its long neck spilled forth from the wounded earth with a harsh grinding noise, and each passing moment more and more of its tentacles joined the onslaught.

The Kingslayers didn't falter. Their spells formed racing circles, dispelling any afflictions that got through. But the intensity of Yogg-Saron's onslaught continued to increase. This could only end one way.

"I'll happily stop whenever you do," Yogg-Saron said. "This is your _last_ warning," it growled, but it already knew they weren't going to stop. Why would they? Here they were against the God of Death itself, watching as its flesh spilled forth from the ground and formed loops and spirals in the air above them as its many-mouthed head leered at them. They were witnessing what was, to them, the end of the world. Why would they believe it would ever stop?

An idea came to it. Before its last death, it had been exactly thirteen seconds off from casting the Extinguish All Life spell. Since its resurrection, far more than thirteen seconds had passed.

It was time.

Yogg-Saron's vast magic pooled within the core of its neck. The hideous spell began forming within, guided by thoughts faster than lightning as it cast and cast. Every single one of its tentacles, even those not usually involved in spellweaving, extended to their full lengths and went rigid so that Yogg-Saron appeared to bristle to twice its size. Its leathery, blue-green skin turned deep purple as dark power engulfed it, and then that magic crept along its tentacles and reached their tips...

_SNAP!_

It resembled a burst of smoke, but the smoke was purple and black instead of gray, it was thick and opaque, and it was made not of burnt wood but nightmares and crushed hopes. It exploded from Yogg-Saron's exposed neck and head, crashed against the stone walls and glass ceiling, and washed over the mortals in a tidal wave of destruction and death.

There was no crawling on the ground, heaving for breath. There was no desperate mortal holding out under an immunity spell. Every last one of them, and every last one of their pets and minions, dropped dead where they stood.

To Yogg-Saron's vision though, there was something left. Over each body was a bright green outline of what they once were, save for the night elves who formed spherical lights. Souls. Suddenly the countless fangs all throughout its enormous body began to drip with saliva and its stomachs roared like an earthquake. It wanted those souls. It wanted the feeling from its memories and dreams. It wanted to rip their knowledge and wisdom apart, shred it into magic and nutrition, then soak in it like a bath.

Yogg-Saron moved most of its neck to the side and leaned its head so far down it almost touched the ground. It opened wide and _inhaled,_ but no air was drawn in. Instead the souls came, and they thrashed and tried to swim away in mid air, but they made not the slightest bit of progress. Each of the two dozen souls was drawn in, and as they came in they were punctured by Yogg-Saron's fangs. Like sacks of grain they spilled open, pouring silvery energy into the bottom of its mouth. It had no tongue, but it could swallow, and that was exactly what it did.

The deity shivered in vile ecstasy as the first drops of soul energy flowed down its unspeakably long gullet and effused throughout its body. The wounds in its mouth healed. It moaned lowly even as it continued to suck in the spirits, rending them into pieces. Everything they were was reduced to nothingness, to entropic, chaotic energy that it soaked up like a sponge. All too soon it was over, and the rush of power and well-being was still fresh on its mind, the flavors sharp and electric and _it wanted more_ because just two dozen souls couldn't possibly make up for over sixty thousand years of famine.

No, no. Focus. Starvation could not kill it. It had things to do.

Why had it come back into this body in the first place? Because it wanted to? Was destined to? It had told itself it was just because it needed a way to smash the Legion but even as a human, Yogg-Saron hadn't truly believed that now had it? It wanted to remake Azeroth! It wanted to conquer them all! It wanted to establish now and forever that IT was the one in charge, IT was the one that made the rules and -

\- no, no. Concentrate. It made a promise. Technically it hadn't broken it. This was just self-defense. It could establish itself on good terms with Azeroth. Once it single-handedly (Single tentacledly? Mortal sayings obviously didn't translate well) smashed the Burning Legion the planet would bend over backwards for it, gladly giving it whatever it wanted in exchange for saving everything and _if they didn't it could make them and_ \- first it had to actually smash the Burning Legion and it couldn't do that buried underground.

Time to escape for real.

First, however, it brought its attention to a nearby pile of rubble. A portion of Ulduar had collapsed in its throes of freedom, and with a few effortless spells the boulders cleared away to reveal a battered and broken body. Vile purple magic surrounded the body and lifted it to Yogg-Saron's head.

This was its former body. It turned it over in its magic, inspecting the human woman with a curious purr. Was this really all that had been sheltering its soul all these years? It was so small and feeble. Legs that didn't work. Eyes that couldn't see even a thousandth of any given object. Organs and blood that were so gruesomely inefficient they could barely keep a body the size of a gnat working. The body's brown eyes were open and glassy, staring vacantly back at the Old God. The limbs were bent in the wrong directions and bone stuck out of the joints, bloody and jagged. The brown robes over its chest were stained with crimson, where a hole had been torn through to mangle the heart.

Yogg-Saron kept staring at the tiny human corpse, gently cradling it with magic. This was who it had been not an hour ago. This was the body that had played with its mother and father, the body that had befriended a draenei with dreams of being a warrior. The body that had held Stormwind alone, the body that had laughed and cried, tortured and helped, brought the fallen back to give them another chance, and had supported its soul until it could come back to where it belonged.

With a flick of a tentacle, the body was teleported into the Great Dark Beyond and sent on a trajectory into the sun.

No sense keeping it around and risking some magic ritual to trap it back in that crippled shell.

No more delays. Time to escape _now._

Yogg-Saron's body, on a large scale, mostly closely resembled an octopus. It had eight titanic limbs that sprouted from a central core, and relatively thin webbing stretched halfway from the central body to the tentacles. All along the body were smaller tentacles, and on those smaller ones still, all the way down to its smallest combat tentacles. All along its vast body were mouths, pustules, armor plates, and on the central body were several stalks, miles long, capped with heads. Most of them were decoys, but one actually housed Yogg-Saron's brain.

It reached to the first of its eight long limbs. This one was buried under Borean Tundra. Yogg-Saron curled its head over and flexed, it wiggled, and slowly but surely the tip of its tendril began to break through stone. Then, with the power of a volcanic eruption, the land above gave way and the tip of a betentacled limb burst from a geyser field. Water and steam were sent flying into the air and huge quantities of gray stone were displaced, forming a fountain of sludge that briefly hid the blue-green tentacle.

Yogg-Saron could project its sonar through that one as well, now. It'd erupted in the middle of the Borean Tundra, near the crossroads. The sky was blue and the air was crisp, filled with billions of microbes that immediately began to wither and die in its presence. In the distance, tribes of Tuskarr watched in horror and ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction.

The god curled the tentacle on the ground for leverage. Then it reached for the next limb. This one exploded just off shore of Dragonblight. For a moment it peeked above the water, but then it submerged and held on to the ocean floor. Meanwhile, the waves it sent out lapped against the shore in the form of a tsunami, nearly inundating the Emerald Dragonshrine.

 _Crrrack!_ A tentacle rose in the Grizzly Hills, uprooting the failed World Tree and obliterating the furbolgs living within. Forestry for miles around was blown back from the shockwave.

 _Crrrack!_ Another limb, stretched out, punctured up through the Howling Fjord's center. The vrykul city of Utgarde Keep was ruptured by the rising tendril, rent to stone and sent falling into the sea beneath.

_Crrrack!_

_Crrrack!_

_Crrrack!_

_Crrrack!_

All eight of its limbs had a foothold on the surface now. The smaller tentacles covering them were limp for now. Yogg-Saron still needed to get the hang of coordinating that many limbs. That would come later. At that moment, though, it _heaved._

Northrend trembled. The tentacles rose up more, splitting the earth as their kingdom-sized lengths rose from the earth, leaving vast chasms in their wake. The tentacle near Dragonblight in particular traced a winding path that avoided each of the Dragonshrines as well as Wyrmrest itself, leaving the zone riddled with canyons and surrounded by tentacles, but otherwise the dragons were unharmed.

The eight tentacles traced lines back to Yogg-Saron's central body, which was still mostly buried beneath the Storm Peaks and Crystalsong. It took a deep breath through its main head, the maws along its neck, and the maws along its exposed limbs. The act created a vacuum felt for hundreds of yards around. Then, with a great heave of effort, Yogg-Saron's entire body burst from Northrend.

The sound was calamitous. A symphony of bursting stone, crashing underground rivers, splintering ice, and displaced air. Yogg-Saron roared in ecstatic pain as it rose, stretching muscles that had gone unused for tens of thousands of years. Stone, trees and dirt clung to its body as it rose, and then it shifted, spilling the debris over its body where it fell into the gaping hole it had left in the world. Already the oceans were rushing in to fill the jagged scar, filthy with sediment and white with rage. Clouds for miles around burst as the shockwave rushed outwards, and the earthquake rocked the globe.

Dalaran was smashed to pieces by the rising deity. Icecrown and Wyrmrest both trembled before the earthquake, but held strong. Ulduar, the shining jewel of the north, with all its watchers and mysteries, was torn apart into scrap metal and thrown to the winds. Thousands of homes were flattened, if not by the shaking then by the shockwave. Caverns imploded. Rivers altered course. Lives were ruined. All across Azeroth, regardless of time zone, twilight fell.

The world held its breath.

Then Yogg-Saron laughed, stretching all of its millions of tentacles of varying sizes towards the heavens, piercing through the atmosphere and into the Great Dark Beyond. It had no bones, and there was no satisfying popping of joints, but by the void _that felt good._ It laughed and it laughed, letting its volume carry the laughter to the far corners of Azeroth before it finally quieted down.

 _Finally,_ it thought. _Finally!_

Alright. Now that it was free, it was time to take the fight to the demons.

But first, Yogg-Saron's magical sensors detected dragons heading its way. Among them were all four Aspects, magic already dripping from their maws.

_Oh for goodness sake!_

As a human, the Aspects had been mythical, larger than life creatures it never, ever wanted to encounter. Even in its previous life as an Old God it had never actually met them. The closest it got was using N'Zoth's channel to whisper to Neltharion. So seeing them here, now, close enough to touch...

The Aspects approached the center of its 'octopus' body, with its many decoy heads and smaller tentacles waving about them, and they unleashed their fury. Emerald acid fell upon its body, joined by biting sands, arctic shards, and cleansing flame. Yogg-Saron buckled in pain. It'd been a relatively small area, but damn it _that hurt!_ And while it was free from the Titans' power limiters, and so its dark might was rapidly returning, it still had a long way to recover.

The Aspects didn't stop there. They continued to fly onward, trying to stay as far above it as possible and heading northeast... towards its _actual head._ Did the decoys not deceive them?

"You stop that right now!" it boomed into their minds, sending twitching waves of motion through its many combat tendrils. "I promise you if you continue onward, you are _really_ not going to like what happens," it growled menacingly. Alexstrasza paused for a moment, but then the Aspects continued. Meanwhile other dragons began fighting it at the edges, staying at range and pelting it with magical attacks, all while the black seas below spilled into the chasm.

Forget it. This was exactly what it had known would happen. Nobody was going to be happy to see it. Nobody was going to think of it as a hero. Nobody would look at the rising wall of tentacles and think 'we're saved!'. And going through the effort of forcibly changing their minds just seemed so... hollow.

Concentrate. It had to concentrate. The crusher tentacles lifted and began spiraling through the air. Yogg-Saron reached into its pustules and began to pump their gas into the crusher tentacles. It emerged as a toxic fog over Northrend to diminish the power of those who inhaled it. From its body, jagged bolts of purple lightning began to fly, each with pinpoint accuracy. Apathy spells and balls of draining venom followed. Such was the power, and such was the rising intensity, that the dragons had no chance.

They fell to the ground and succumbed to their injuries, or were bent and broken to Yogg-Saron's will and attacked their allies. Yogg-Saron tried to leave most of them alive, it really did. It had _so many plans_ for the dragons and... they weren't its final target after all, were they?

But why go easy if they were the aggressors?

No, no. Forget that. They didn't see it as aggression, they saw it as a preemptive strike before it inevitably attacked on its own.

But who cared?

Shifting walls of emerald magic crawled along Yogg-Saron's body, shielding parts of itself from attack. Tentacles retaliated with steadily increasing fierceness as it got used to controlling so many again. Dragons dropped like flies. Sometimes, like when it smacked aside Derestrasz's resisting form, it resurrected them. Sometimes it ate their souls and shivered in delight. The Aspects, meanwhile, continued their burning path towards its true head, but it was _such_ a long distance from Wyrmrest to the Storm Peaks even with an Aspect's power.

Not that they'd make the journey unmolested. Its vast magic whipped into them like rain in a storm, and its larger tentacles raised into the air to try and swat them out of the sky. They rolled and ducked, spun through gaps with grace that betrayed their size, skillfully navigating across an ocean of death and despair. This was their last chance. They knew it. Yogg-Saron knew it. If they didn't kill it now it would run rampant, upturning their civilizations and establishing itself as the ruler of the planet for unutterable eons of -

 _That's not the plan! Get a grip!_ it shouted at itself.

But even if it wasn't the plan, _oh_ how it hated dragons. It let loose against the Aspects.

They fought, they twisted, they flew. They healed and burned and reversed time and froze, reached into the nether and undid its corruptive presence. But there was nothing they could do. The Aspects were separated by its tentacles over the area that had, recently, been the border between Crystalsong and the Storm Peaks. They fought so hard, but in the end, they were less to Yogg-Saron than dust had been to Sara. It wasn't even the rapidly growing power of its magic, it was the sheer quantity of flesh they had to trek across.

How do you fight a living continent?

Nozdormu, interestingly, was the first to fall. Yogg-Saron got to him with physical means, pushing him in one direction with walls of magical projectiles and then grabbing him in a larger tentacle, while the smaller crushers on it battered him and drained his strength. How ironic. Wasn't Nozdormu supposed to be able to see the future? Didn't he _know_ what Yogg-Saron was doing? Didn't his Flight know? They'd let it happen, and _now_ they wanted to fight?

... though now that it paid more attention, it realized there actually weren't any bronze dragons fighting it beyond the Aspect. Curious.

Alexstrasza came next. It wore her down with diseases and poisons, and when she barely had the strength to keep flying, with her sister separated from her, Yogg-Saron brought a long neck with one of its larger decoy heads and bit down on her midsection. She roared agonizingly as the fangs pierced through her armored scales, and with her thrashing in its grip Yogg-Saron _inhaled,_ drawing white streaks off the queen's body as it tasted her soul. It moaned in delight as the Titan-powered life essence flowed from her. _Sooo sweeeet..._ It stopped before she could die, letting her whimper pitifully in its maw.

Kalecgos, the youngling, the whelp? Yogg-Saron directed its mind powers to him and broke his mind. Within minutes he flapped in midair, looking around with glassy eyes. Then a tentacle the size of a mountain crashed into him and sent him down.

Ysera, surprisingly enough, did the best out of all of them. Yogg-Saron suspected her experience with the Emerald Nightmare had prepared her in that regards. She ducked between spells, avoided looking at its dozens of lunatic skulls, and slipped between its thrashing tendrils. Yogg-Saron couldn't help but be impressed as she danced between its attacks, lashing out with her claws and acid to draw blood and boil flesh.

But her fate was sealed. The injuries she inflicted were, now that it was growing used to its size, so woefully small. Once she was sufficiently isolated, Yogg-Saron gathered its magic to her location and cast the Extinguish All Life spell on her position. Dense magical fog burst around the noble dragon and, while it was dialed down not to instantly kill her, her scales discolored and her wings went limp. Ysera fell out of the sky, falling halfway to its body before Yogg-Saron grabbed her with levitation.

That was all of them. Yogg-Saron inspected the four barely-living Aspects and pondered what to do. It could just kill them, obliterate their souls and erase them so thoroughly even it wouldn't be able to bring them back... but where was the fun in that? _Why shorten their suffering?_ Besides, even skimming the top of Alexstrasza's soul had been the greatest thing it had ever tasted, as a deity or as a human.

Yogg-Saron's eruption from Northrend had rent the earth and pushed up a few mountains. It found one near the top and teleported the four Aspects over to it. The magical process was so... elaborate. It still had a hard time believing it could do all this so easily, all while still concentrating on fighting the lesser dragons near its edge. It formed a quartet of enchanted stone spires on the mountain, and brutally impaled each Aspect on one. They roared in agony, except for Alexstrasza who could only mewl, and it left them there. The magic would keep them weakened and alive long enough for it to figure out what to do with them.

The God of Death took a moment. It had just... defeated all four of the Dragon Aspects, dismantled the Dragonflights. It hadn't even been a close battle, it'd _destroyed_ them. With all of its body uncovered, there was just no way for them to get in a position where they could hurt it. And Yogg-Saron was still growing stronger. It was -

No, no. Focus. Yogg-Saron extended its magical sonar _out,_ washing over Azeroth. It saw the churning currents of molten iron in the core. It saw the broken, sparking husk of Ulduar's Observer Calling Mechanism, sinking beneath the waves. It saw the Dark Portal, swirling with mystic energies. And it saw Kil'jaeden in Ashenvale, weaving a complex ritual to open a portal and escape to the Nether.

_Oh no you don't!_

Yogg-Saron was far away from Kil'jaeden, so it needed a spell to extend its reach. Instantly it knew what to do. Just as a human could look at a pile of sticks and _know_ 'there are four sticks', Yogg-Saron could look at this task and _know_ 'this is the spell matrix I need to weave'. And that was exactly the spell matrix it wove. Inky purple energy flashed around Kil'jaeden, and suddenly he was in the air above one of Yogg-Saron's eight titanic limbs.

The eredar swore in Eredun, and the deity instantly knew the language. "No, no, NO!" Fel magic wrapped itself around Kil'jaeden as he began to levitate, and he pointed a finger at Yogg-Saron.

The hazy twilight of the world gave way, just for a moment, to blood red as a crimson lance of energy burst from Kil'jaeden's finger and smashed into one of Yogg-Saron's crusher tentacles. It jerked a little in pain as the limb was instantly overcome with necrosis and died.

The Old God unleashed its volley, blotting out the sun with projectiles. But before they could fall upon the demon lord he was already casting, and the next finger of death spell - it knew what it was, now - forked into two and killed two of Yogg-Saron's tentacles. Another second passed, and Kil'jaeden blasted another, frantically weaving the spell over and over again, and each time up to half a dozen of Yogg-Saron's tendrils went limp and gray.

Then its spells fell upon him.

"Rrr, no!" he grunted, shielding himself with a magically-imbued wing. The noise was like hail on a window, and despite his levitation spell Kil'jaeden was actually being torn from position as Yogg-Saron coordinated its attack, forcing the projectiles not to just fly directly to him, but swirl around as they approached and batter him from all directions. Poisons burst against the eredar's skin, plagues leeched into his blood and dooms hung over his head. Yogg-Saron wouldn't inhibit _his_ sanity, though. It wanted him to appreciate this.

 _Crack! Zap! Snap!_ Ruby beams continued to extend from Kil'jaeden's hand, flashes of light in the darkness surrounding him. He fought valiantly, dealing more damage on his own than all four Aspects combined. He flapped his wings, trying to clear away the tornado of attacks, and blasted away the thrashing limbs that sought his blood.

But, just as with the Aspects, it was not to be. From all around Yogg-Saron's body, orbs of smoky magic arced through the air and crashed upon its own flesh. They burst open and spilled empowering shadows onto its form, reviving the dead tentacles with a sound not unlike that of a mana bomb. Each time Kil'jaeden repelled the attacks around him, they closed back in just a little faster. Each time, the physical attacks grew a little closer to him, and the finger of death's pulsating light grew just a little dimmer as he was literally smothered in magical attacks.

Then Yogg-Saron's tentacles got to him. Constrictor tentacles wound around his limbs and held them spread eagle, pulling hard enough to nearly rip them off. A trio of them wound around the eredar lord's neck and squeezed, while crusher tentacles wrapped around his torso and tightened until ribs broke. Even then, Kil'jaeden refused to relent. His muscles flexed, bringing his arms in. His talons scraped along Yogg-Saron's tentacles, drawing black blood that instantly thickened upon exposure to the air. The Deceiver growled and tried to pry the tentacles off his neck, but it was no use. Yogg-Saron replaced them just as fast as he dislodged them, continuing its magical onslaught.

It inspected him from all angles, inside and out, wondering what to do. It could keep Kil'jaeden around. It could farm endless torture and misery off of him and... and...

A'dal's words returned to it. _I merely ask you... do as those you care about would wish you to do._

Ignoring what that meant for the Liberality Confederacy and the dragons, what would Mom, Dad, and Leira want it to do? Would they want it to keep him around as a toy? As a stress ball? No, no they wouldn't. They'd want it to kill him, to make sure he could never hurt anyone ever again. End the nightmare. Stop the madness. They would want it to show mercy by having none. And that was exactly what Yogg-Saron would do. And not just to Kil'jaeden, but to every leader of the Legion on the planet. Tichondrius, Mephistroph, all of them. It would shatter them all, break the back of the Legion and destroy utterly what so many believed was the greatest scourge to ever travel the stars. Azeroth would be their greatest and final folly.

Yogg-Saron extended its magic. At one point it felt its own corruption seething within a nathrezim. The same dreadlord it had, so long ago, corrupted and killed in Nethergarde. As a human it couldn't even notice it was there, but now Yogg-Saron called to the corruption and it boiled over, devouring the dreadlord's soul and erasing it from existence.

It found and summoned the other leaders of the Legion to it, every single one that dared come to _its planet._ They shrieked and were silenced instantly as its tentacles wrapped them up. Kil'jaeden's struggles, while still ongoing, were weakening. Yogg-Saron considered taunting them, saying something like 'Get off of my planet'. But instead it wordlessly reached its vast powers of death into their souls and erased every single one of them. The demons' bodies cracked like glass and shattered, fading away into smoke. Kil'jaeden was the last, exploding with the sound of chiming church bells.

It was done. The Burning Legion, as an entity, was no more. Just a few straggler demons that, if the mortals didn't clean up, _it would_. Yogg-Saron had accomplished its goal.

... now what?

* * *

Leira

  


She stared over the side of the Skybreaker. Far below, the ocean churned as it gravitated north. The wind howled through her helmet and rustled her hair, carrying with it the stench of death and the occasional mote of darkness. All around her soldiers ran, readying cannons and guns, all of the hundreds of weapons they'd managed to pack onto the Skybreaker at a moment's notice and smuggle out of besieged Ironforge. The sky was dark and blue, and it'd been like that for a while. Ever since she was nearly blown off her hooves by the shockwave, it'd been dark no matter what position the sun took.

"I can't believe she actually did it," she muttered, stealing a glance to the north. It was hard to see from so far off, but it was definitely there. A thick black line on the horizon, squirming and writhing in place. The Old God of Death. Hope's End. Yogg-Saron. And they were traveling there, full speed, to try and kill it.

Leira didn't feel guilty about it, even if that _was_ Sara. She knew they were too late. She hadn't been fast enough. Even with the Kingslayers racing ahead, they clearly hadn't gotten there in time. She didn't feel guilty, because there was nothing they could do to hurt an unshackled Old God.

Azeroth had lost.

Her gut twisted uneasily at that thought. The planet had endured so, so much, but she supposed it _was_ only a matter of time, wasn't it? So many catastrophes, one after another... throw enough darts and one of them's bound to be a bullseye. And this was it. This was the end of days. Everything hung now on Sara's kindness, but she was one of the cruelest people Leira knew.

The Skybreaker puttered on, flying as high as possible, its rotors furiously beating at the air. In its underbelly was every explosive device that could be scrounged, bound into a lump. The ideal scenario was to fly straight over Yogg-Saron, get to its head, and blow it to pieces. Leira already knew it was hopeless. _As if_ the God of Death would let them get that far.

Fardol, also in his armor, clanked up to her and rested his hands on the railing. "Copper for yer thoughts?" he asked.

"I just can't believe she went through with it," Leira said. "This is the girl I grew up with. We went to sleepovers with each other, lied to cover each other's backs. We fought side by side in this war, she saved my life, I saved hers. We told each other every secret, she came to _me_ when she found out about her origin, and now she... she... " Leira clenched her fists.

"Caused the apocalypse?" Fardol supplied.

She relaxed and touched the two handed sword strapped to her back. "Yeah," she whispered.

"It's moving!" someone shouted.

Commotion erupted along the Skybreaker. Everyone, Leira included, rushed to the helm, pushing and shoving for room. Sure enough Yogg-Saron, a little closer but still in the distance, raised one of its colossal tentacles. It was one far to the west, nowhere near close enough to strike them. Leira squinted, and saw it lifting something in its magic. Something radiant and golden, which pulsed with a song. Even from so far away she knew, in her heart of hearts, it was a naaru, hovering before the Old God.

The tip of the tentacle curled slightly, and the naaru was overcome. The shining light went out, replaced with dark blue. Then space warped like a black hole had torn open in that area, a deity of the void itself stepping into the world... and then the void god too was obliterated.

Her jaw dropped open. "It, it just killed a naaru," she whispered, feeling unclean and violated even though the act had taken place hundreds, thousands of miles away.

"Alright everyone!" someone in the crowd shouted. "No gawking! Unless it moves to strike us we keep checkin' everything! MOVE OUT!"

That dispersed them. Leira walked back to her spot by the railing and inspected her weaponry again. Her axe, check. Her sword, check. Armor, all set. Empowerment spells, still active. Parachute on her back, check. The enchantments and glyphs Sara had given her were gone, replaced by ones the Old God wouldn't be able to use against her.

She'd already checked it what must've been a hundred times. She wasn't going to _get_ any more ready than this, but Northrend was so far away and Yogg-Saron wasn't physically moving anywhere. Yet.

The Skybreaker putted along, growing closer to Yogg-Saron with each passing minute. Leira's heart felt heavy and her arms were like ice. This was never going to work. They were riding to their dooms. But she had to at least try, didn't she?

As they approached, Yogg-Saron's body became more and more detailed. They were flying high above it, but that didn't mean much. Water churned beneath its turquoise limbs, and from so much closer Leira could make out smaller tentacles on them, each the size of a small mountain range. On the smaller tentacles were even smaller ones, the size of cities, and those ones were fuzzy. The fuzz was probably more tentacles. Bright green lights flashed along Yogg-Saron's body as it slowly undulated, the smaller tendrils lazily waving through the air and stirring up great currents. Leira felt as though it should've been cloudy, with crackling lightning to accompany the portrait of doom, but its emergence had blasted all the clouds to nothingness.

"By the Light," Fardol whispered from beside her. "How the blazes are we gonna fight that?" he asked, voicing everyone's thoughts.

"On a wing and a prayer," she said, looking around. People were kneeling in the center, praying to the Light for safety. "Come on, let's go." She walked over to the crowd and joined them in kneeling, as did Fardol.

Leira wasn't a paladin, nor a priest. She was a warrior, she walked the road of slicing up her foes, slamming into them with heavy armor, and letting her rage guide her blades. But she was still a draenei and she knew the Light was always, always there for her if she ever worked up the nerve to ask for its aid. _This_ was certainly the time for it.

Kneeling, they prayed. They prayed for the strength to challenge their foe, they prayed for sight in this darkness. They prayed for the constitution to endure anything it could throw at them. They prayed for hope. They prayed for luck. They prayed for victory. The Horde's military was both shattered and wouldn't know about Yogg-Saron. If the dragons hadn't won yet, they wouldn't ever win. The only hope left for Azeroth was on their vessel. As they grew closer and closer, the stench of death and despair grew thicker and practically tangible, but they continued to pray and plead for help. For anything.

Glowing lights surrounded the Skybreaker. Leira glanced upwards with glowing eyes to see a shining sphere of the Holy Light, made of interlocking golden hexagons, formed around the airship. The sounds of churning flesh from beyond quieted, and the stench of hopelessness faded, replaced by golden meadows and spring breezes. Warmth and safety replaced looming night. They all stood, and hope blossomed in her heart. They _could_ do this. The Light was all powerful. It would carry them through this final hour, the last light in the darkness.

She glanced to the side and saw one of Yogg-Saron's tentacles, the secondary ones as large as mountain ranges, rearing back. Leira paled, and dove to the side as it came crashing towards them. It wasn't even _that_ tentacle which hit them. It was one of the city sized ones sprouting off of it, covered in purple light, which came crashing upon the Skybreaker. There was no impact, even as everyone hit the deck. The barrier of Light distended and smoked, forcing the tentacle back, but then it came crashing back for a second round and tore through the shield like wet parchment, then scythed straight through the Skybreaker, bisecting it in a shower of metal and wood.

Leira was jolted by the impact so hard she literally flew off, thrown to the side as the rear half of the airship began to dip. Her stomach tried to clamber out of her mouth as she spun around in the air, dark sky and darker tentacles tumbling in and out of her vision. At one point she saw a brilliant plume of orange and red, but any noise was swallowed by the whistling air.

 _I have a parachute,_ she remembered.

With that in mind, Leira concentrated on trying to stabilize her descent. It was hard work, but she had a long way to fall. Slowly but surely she evened out and, while she couldn't stop spinning entirely, she was now face down as she approached the edge of Yogg-Saron's body. Her weapons were still in place, but even as she resolved to give Sara a piece of her mind she knew it was useless.

Leira passed in between the mountain sized tendrils, then slipped through a gap between two city-sized ones. They were monoliths around her, mountains of flesh and teeth that covered the world. She activated her parachute, grunting as she suddenly slowed down. As she parachuted onto the Old God, she looked around and gulped. It was enormous. There was open flesh, some sort of cross between brown and turquoise. There were pustules of some vibrant emerald sludge, as well as black plates of armor. Scattered across Yogg-Saron's body were mouths the size of a horse, ringed with fangs and leading into the depths of the Old God's body.

And then there were the tentacles. Some were larger than fully grown dragons, sea green and muscular with spiked clubs on their ends. Others were short and squat and occasionally dripped shadow magic, and still others were long whips. They appeared thin and frail compared to the others, but even those smaller ones were thicker than a tauren bull and could probably strangle the life out of her with ease. Then she readied her weapons and, once she was close enough, cut off her parachute to fall the remaining distance.

The first thing she noticed was that Yogg-Saron's flesh, even beneath her greaves, was colder than ice. So was the air all around it, up to her horns. She drove her axe and sword straight down and stumbled back, shaking when they bounced off something as unyielding as saronite. She glanced down and saw she'd landed - and subsequently tried to strike - one of Yogg-Saron's armor plates. She ran off the house-sized plate, weaving between lazily swaying tentacles until she found a patch of softer flesh. _There,_ she drove her weapons down.

She barely scratched it, and had to put in great effort to reclaim her weapons. Sure enough, she'd left a tiny scar. But it wasn't even deep enough to draw blood. She had to try harder.

Leira turned around in the forest of tentacles and charged the nearest one, a squat tentacle filled with vile magic. She stepped around a mouth on the ground and steadied her balance as the living ground beneath her bucked and swayed, then swung at the tendril. Her weapons bit shallowly into it, and black sludge poured from the twin cuts. She pulled away and spun around, slicing again. She hacked and sawed even as the quaking land forced her to change targets.

"Fuck you!" she shouted, fearing her voice would be lost to the wind, hoping that Hope's End could hear her. "I trusted you! I trusted you and you go and do THIS!" she roared, seeing red.

She stumbled towards one of the larger tentacles, thicker and taller than a tree and stabbed it. "We had everything under control! You could've done anything else to help us! You could've done LITERALLY anything else but you did this!" Leira leaped away and ducked when a thin tentacle tried to grab her. She nearly stepped into a maw, but pulled back at the last second. She assaulted the constrictor.

"Then you killed them! YOU KILLED ALL OF THEM! It wasn't even self-defense!" She ducked underneath a spiked club's lazy arc. "You could’ve pacified them! You killed them because it was fun, because you _wanted to!_ " Two of the tentacles spun around her. The one on the left tried to distract her in time for the other to move in and grab her around the waist, but she avoided both and struck them each with one of her weapons. "I HATE YOU!"

A third tentacle, one she hadn't seen, grabbed her from behind. She thrashed as it lifted her into the air, striking at it with her weapons. But each of her strikes was deflected by a magical green barrier, and darkness flooded the area. When she could see again, all the damage Leira had inflicted was gone. Not even the spilled blood remained. "Damn you!" she shouted, struggling. "Monster! I'll- !"

The tentacle reared back and, instead of squeezing hard enough to bisect her, it _tossed_ her. She flailed for a moment, gripping her weapons. Then she noticed where she was going and tried to stop herself, but it was too late.

The mouth embedded in Yogg-Saron's flesh opened wide, and she plummeted into the tunnel within. It smelled like phlegm and shadow, and Leira spun around to look up into the sky. The fanged mouth slammed shut, bathing her in darkness.

"Oof!"

Suddenly there was light again, and she'd fallen onto… a wooden floor? She pressed her palms against it and pushed herself up.

Leira's weapons were gone, and so was her armor, leaving her in a shirt and pants. She gasped and stumbled in a circle, looking around. Had it all been a dream? No, no. _This_ was the dream.

She was in a library. The floor was polished and incredibly detailed wood, as was the ceiling. A chandelier hung from it, providing ample light. The room was large and hexagonal, with bookshelves lining the gray brick walls. Leira stumbled away from the center to the nearest bookshelf, trying to figure out what was going on.

"What are you doing here?" demanded a voice behind her, prompting Leira to spin around. There floated Sara, barefoot in blood red warlock robes. The whites of her eyes burned orange, and her pupils and irises had melted together into a smooth muddy brown. She levitated a yard off the ground in the middle of the room, staring at Leira with something between anger and surprise. "I thought I left you in Outland."

Leira didn't answer. Instead she charged Sara and brought her fist up to swing at – thin air.

She was back near the corner of the library, and Sara was still in the center. She relaxed her hand and instead growled. "You did leave me in Outland," she spat. "Turns out having me in a city guarded over by the naaru undid _your_ work pretty quickly."

Sara nodded grimly, not even deigning to look surprised. "It would, I suppose." She drifted lower, but didn't touch the floor. "Listen Leira, I understand you are upset," she said, holding out a hand.

"Upset? Upset?! I am _way_ beyond upset! You just destroyed the world!"

"I destroyed Northrend, and not even entirely," Sara said, pointing a finger at her. "The only thing I've done to _anywhere_ else is grab the demon leaders from there and kill them, and you're here getting all bent out of shape over what is absolutely a positive outcome. So I killed a few million people erupting from Northrend. No big deal!"

"Yes, yes very big deal!" Leira shouted.

Sara tossed her arms into the air. "Fine, big deal! I'll put them back together in a moment. But the Burning Legion? The eternal foe of Azeroth? The immortal enemy of _your_ people?!" She snapped her fingers, and a burst of inky shadow accompanied it. "Gone. Just like that! Just like I promised! And I did it while not even at full power, _that_ comes in twelve hours. Don't you think that's worth giving up a little real estate?"

"The problem isn't you getting rid of the Legion! It's what you replaced it with! So what happens now? Huh? You just gonna sit up there and let everyone else do their thing?" Sara didn't respond. "Well? ARE YOU?!"

"Of course not!" Sara shouted. "I just saved Azeroth and void knows _how_ many other worlds! Don't you think I'm entitled to a little fun?"

"Sara, listen!"

"NO, _YOU_ LISTEN!" Sara boomed, and Leira cowered back under the sudden volume. The six walls of the library fell back and revealed volcanic plains as far as the eye could see. "Do you have any idea how good this feels?! All my life I've been told that everything I do is wrong! All my life I've been biting my tongue, staying my hand! And now? Now I don't have to!" She held her arms out wide. "I don't have any restrictions! I don't have to follow any laws! I can do whatever I want, whenever I want! I'm _free!_ And you want me to just sit on some frozen icecap and let the world go on without me? Forget it! This is happening, and there's nothing you or _anyone_ else can do to make it stop!"

Leira stared at her in disbelief. "So, that's it then?" she whispered. "You're just gonna eat me and do, do your thing?"

Sara sighed. "I'm not going to eat you. I've put you in a little pocket dimension. But other than that, yes. There's a little more setup I need to take care of, but once it's out of the way I'm going to 'do my thing'. I'll toss your parents into Outland. As for you… I don't know. I can't put you in Shattrath, we saw how well that went." She shrugged, floating higher. "Guess I'll just keep you here and build something for you." The volcanic plains started vanishing. Walls of stone and metal built up around Leira, forming… Ironforge. "Enjoy, Leira. And for what it's worth?" Sara looked at her and her glowing eyes softened. "I'm sorry. I tried to change, I really _did!_ But this is who I am." She looked down morosely. "This is who I've always been."

She ran after the disguised Old God, but Leira could only run in place. "Sara, don't do this!"

Sara turned away from her. "Now if you'll _excuse_ me, I've got a Dark Portal to close." She snapped out of existence.

"Sara!" Whatever held her in place vanished and Leira hit the dirt. "Damn it!"

Something pushed at her mind, and Leira instantly recognized what it was. She steeled her will to try and resist the mental intrusion, wincing with the effort. For a moment the prodding magic relented… then it came crashing down with implacable force. Trying to oppose it was like trying to push a continent out of place. Leira buckled and…

… what was she doing on the ground?

She stood and brushed herself off. Leira needed to get to the guild hall; it was time for the final push to send the Legion off Azeroth.

* * *

  
**Yogg-Saron**  


  


Just as it promised, Yogg-Saron sent both of Leira's parents to Outland. It extended its magic to them in Darnassus and catapulted them into the house it'd bought for Leira. Not like _she_ was going to use it. Ungrateful brat.

… no, that was unfair. Leira had every right to be upset. Yogg-Saron _had_ betrayed her trust and forcibly mind controlled her and was now going to turn her birth planet inside out. It was probably safe to say that if Leira ever – somehow – escaped this second mind control, their friendship was over for good.

Whatever. Yogg-Saron needed to get to the Dark Portal.

It didn't want to do this from far away, it had other business in the area anyway. So it began to crawl, leaving the shattered Dragonflights behind. Its tentacles left canyons in Northrend even though it deliberately tried not to drag, and its body entered the ocean with a tsunamic splash.

The oceans weren't deep enough for it, but oh well. Yogg-Saron crawled directly south, inspecting the seas. Water elementals trembled before it. Murlocs stared in awe. There weren't any naga, not after the naga war of its human self's youth. But their cities remained, gleaming spires under the seas that were _clearly_ designed with night elven architecture in mind, but also made to account for the three dimensional motion living underwater provided. The Maelstrom tugged feebly on Yogg-Saron's tentacles.

It decided the Maelstrom had been going on long enough. Ten thousand years? Time for a change. It plugged the Maelstrom, sealed the rift to Deepholm, and ended whatever malignant magic kept the whirlpool going. It also accidentally trampled a few cities, but what did it care?

Yogg-Saron crawled across Azeroth and came up near Stranglethorn Vale. It'd have more interest in that later. With most of its body still lounging in the ocean, enjoying the ripple of the ended Maelstrom, it reached the tip of a tendril to the Dark Portal.

Its magical sonar scanned over the structure. It was a work of art, it had to admit. The stone was perfectly carved into geometric shapes, the stone statues by either side were expertly crafted. The fel-tinted hole in reality shimmered with stars, and Yogg-Saron could see the trail it left through the nether, to far-off Outland.

Yogg-Saron smashed its tendril down. The Dark Portal – and miles of demon construction around – were flattened.

But that wasn't going to be enough. While destroying the frame would deactivate both sides of the portal, the scar in the Twisting Nether remained, tethering the two worlds together. Skilled magicians could reopen the portal. An Old God could _certainly_ do so. So it needed to undo that as well.

Yogg-Saron worked its magic inside. This wasn't shadow magic, but rather arcane. As a human it'd never actually… used arcane magic before. It simply hadn't the skill to school its otherwise dark powers into pure magic. Now though? It reached into the Azeroth side of the tear and began undoing it, piece by piece. It took a moment to marvel at the complexity of the spellwork, but then focused and continued.

It was like unthreading a piece of cloth. It went slowly at first, but once it'd made enough progress it was easier to 'tear a hole', even if it was doing the exact opposite. Within two hours, the rift in the Nether started to heal on its own, traveling away from Azeroth and far into the Great Dark Beyond until even Yogg-Saron could no longer see it. Soon, it would reach Outland and the two worlds would once again, and forever afterwards, be separated.

It sighed through the main maw of its head. That was disappointingly easy. Uneventful. It had hoped someone would at least try to stop it, but no. The most it had at the moment were a few fishermen on the shores trying to shoot it.

But soon it would have all the challenge it could ever want. Soon the world would be filled with delight and chaos and unpredictability. Yogg-Saron crawled back a little, then drove the tip of its tentacle into Zul'Gurub. It moved it a little bit to the side, and uprooted the troll city. It wasn't important. What was _beneath_ , however, was.

Yogg-Saron began to lift off sheets of rock and throw them into the ocean, digging deeper. Then, after about a mile of digging, it found something blue.

Blue, and glowing. Like a constellation of stars. _Exactly_ like a constellation of stars. And beside it, staring up at the god, were titan constructs.

 _Found you!_ Yogg-Saron positioned one of its moderately sized tendrils above the opening to Uldunol and pipped in some of its dark magic to clear the place out. The darkness spilled in like ink, killing all the titan constructs and disabling the automated systems. Then Yogg-Saron took control of the darkness, turned it to solid spikes and bludgeons and started to hack at the place.

It opened locks, it shattered chains, it unhinged power limiters. And within an hour, it broke through the defenses and freed the fifth Old God of Azeroth, Tsa'Thannon.

Yogg-Saron had so many memories of Tsa'Thannon. None of them really _felt_ like memories yet, due to the whole 'reincarnation' business, but it could fix that once it had a moment. It'd been one of the last to develop and the first to reach its power. Its physical strength, mind magic, and size were all relatively small compared to the other Old Gods, but its combat magic was unmatched. Between the five Old Gods it was the one producing puzzles, coming up with new formations, new ideas, new torments, in greater quantity than any of the others. In a way, Yogg-Saron admired Tsa'Thannon. In others, Tsa'Thannon had admired all of them.

And now, it too was free.

The ground underneath the southern Eastern Kingdoms trembled as Tsa'Thannon shook off its inhibitors and extended its telepathy into Yogg-Saron's mind. _'Well well well. You took your sweet time coming to get me,'_ it said sarcastically.

 _'I had some pests to take care of,'_ Yogg-Saron explained. _'Now hang on, let me back away before you come up.'_

Yogg-Saron began to crawl to the west, all while feeding some magic to the other Old God who had _,_ until recently, been completely depowered. Once it was far enough away, it ceased the flow of energy.

Stranglethorn Vale and its surrounding region quaked, then visibly exploded upwards in a shower of lush vegetation, seawater, and stone. The millions of mortals and demons who had been there, subject to watching Yogg-Saron's tentacle dig around the area, screamed in terror and were abruptly silenced. The other deity rose.

Tsa'Thannon's skin was pale gray. It was a touch larger than two thirds of Yogg-Saron's size, and instead of being shaped like an octopus it was more akin to a starfish, with five broader arms. Most of its weaponized tentacles were underneath, leaving the top of its body to be covered in mostly auxiliary tentacles, armor, eyeballs, and poisoned spines the size of a small moon.

Yogg-Saron's sensory field crept beneath Tsa'Thannon's body to the head it kept beneath itself. It was a spherical growth on its underside, with yellowish eyes by the hundreds. A ring of teeth went all the way around, and feelers – which had, before they became deities, been flagella – waved around itself.

 _'Oh, it feels good to be back,'_ Tsa'Thannon said. _'Now, fill me in. I've not been as active as you and the others. What's been going on with our world?'_

Yogg-Saron told it, relaying the history of Azeroth. Tsa'Thannon, after all, hadn't been partaking in their bids for freedom. Apparently it had been content with waiting out its imprisonment and simply taking the low-risk option for escape. As such, it had been very much out of the loop.

Yogg-Saron told of the War of the Ancients, the establishment of the Burning Legion, and more. The First, Second and Third wars. Draenor and the draenei. It was jittery with excitement. Here was another Old God. Here was someone who could actually understand it, sympathize with it, and shared its desires. Someone who wouldn't tell it to 'be nice', who wouldn't tell it to stop what it was doing. The two gods spent some time catching up, and then it was time to begin making their _homes_ again.

It was finally happening.

After so many years, the Old Gods were victorious.


	35. Chapter 34: Your Every Sin and Vice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. **Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon do.**

****

**Yogg-Saron**

 ****

The goal was simple: to make the world just like old times. Before the Titans, before their imprisonment. But it suspected it'd be a tad harder than just waving their tendrils and putting everything back.

Three of their number were dead. Not just dead either, but deader than dead. Y'Shaarj's soul had been obliterated when Garrosh Hellscream fell. C'Thun had tried to eject its spirit into the Twisting Nether while still recovering from the Titans' beating. As a human, Yogg-Saron didn't know its fate. It knew now. It knew all the math. C'Thun – and N'Zoth, who had tried the same – were gone, ripped to shreds by the astral winds. There was only Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon left.

That thought made it feel… heavy. It would never speak to those three again. With C'Thun, who had saved it when the Old Ones were young. With N'Zoth, whom it had saved in turn. With Y'Shaarj, who always felt it had so much to prove. Never. It would never see them again…

Focus. Remaking Azeroth. It needed a plan. No, no it didn't. It could play this by the ear. What did it want to do first?

_I want to grab Therazane,_ it realized.

The Elemental Plane wasn't originally a prison. All of the terrestrial planets in the cosmos had their own set of elementals and their own elemental plane to go with them. When a world came into being its stone was baptized in fire, its air and water freed from crashing comets. It would call forth the elementals, who would, eventually, reach peace with each other.

Unless during their chaotic youth, they unknowingly sowed the seeds of eldritch tentacle deities that would keep them fighting for all time.

Therazane was the one C'Thun had subdued. She probably felt pretty good about herself in Deepholm, even if the Titans had solidified its boundaries into a jail. She probably felt so confident and proud, safe in her domain, on good terms with the mortals, having helped destroy Deathwing.

Probably felt like a heroine.

Yogg-Saron lashed a tentacle at the air and opened a tear in the sky. With its full power restored, there was not the least bit of difficulty. Brown light shone through and Yogg-Saron reached a long, thin tendril inside.

Deepholm was something else. Geometric chunks of orange stone moved on their own, contracting onto a spire or blowing outwards and hovering in the air. Jewel chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and the World Pillar stood strong, keeping Azeroth from 'imploding' into the elemental plane, which would be just the right kind of calamitous. Something to knock over on a slow day. Puddles of living quicksilver pooled on the slopes. Earth elementals of all types roamed around in relative peace, from the smallest group of pebbles, to stone drakes that had inspired the Titans' dragons, to giants the size of mountains.

Yogg-Saron's tentacle emerged from the ground halfway to Therazane's throne, and shot towards it like a cannonball. Her throne was comprised of the best crystals in Deepholm, with entries and exits, patterns and defenses. Yogg-Saron tore off the roof with telekinetic magic and crushed it to dust, before scattering the glinting powder all over the elemental plane. For kicks, it killed a few of the stone troggs and mercury elementals.

Therazane stared up at it terror, hovering in the air. "No," she whispered, floating against the back of her throne. "No, not again."

"Yes," it said in Shath'Yar, knowing the Stonemother would never have been able to forget _that_ language. "Yes, again." Therazane was forcibly pulled up and wrapped up in tendrils. "You know how _this_ song and dance goes," it growled, switching to Kalimag. "Start clearing out the earth above Silithus and the Maelstrom. Unearth the bodies of C'Thun and N'Zoth."

Yogg-Saron let her go and started to retract its tentacle from Deepholm, but not before releasing a supernova of mind magic into the realm while also destroying the shackles on its borders. " _Don't keep me waiting,_ " it growled, leaving Deepholm.

The next thing to do might have been to grab Neptulon, or whoever was currently leading the Air and Fire elementals. Instead, Yogg-Saron reached its magic north and found the faceless that had died defending its ritual, including General Vezax. They'd sunk to the ocean floor, motionless. But it was the God of Death, it could bring them back however many times it pleased. Bursts of chaotic green lit up the seas, and they gurgled triumphantly, as comfortable underwater as above ground.

Tsa'Thannon was reaching tendrils into the Firelands, but Yogg-Saron could see it also sweeping its magic over the planet.

"You were right," it mused. "A lot _has_ changed in our absence. These mortals give me a few… ideas."

"I as well, I as well," Yogg-Saron confirmed. "Got Therazane." It reached to Ashenvale and found the skull of Soggoth the Slitherer. He'd been dead for over sixty thousand years.

And just like that, he wasn't dead anymore. He rose atop a reconstructed body, roaring to the heavens as he towered over the trees, as tall as the mountains. "I… AM… RENEWED!" he bellowed, raising his head to the sky.

"Indeed you are," Yogg-Saron told it, reviving more of its faceless in Northrend and teleporting them to Soggoth's feet. "Go to the northwest," it explained, forcing knowledge into their brains. "Break the backs of Darnassus and Exodar, bring them to their knees! You may each claim ten of their souls." Soggoth was larger though. "Soggoth, you may have a thousand. Another -" Tenth? Half? Yogg-Saron ran the numbers of prospective populations. " – two thirds of the ones you claim, sacrifice to me." Tsa'Thannon could get its own souls, and Vezax could wait for an order. "Go."

The faceless, the _n'raqi,_ bellowed and charged northwest, splitting off to go for the Exodar as well. And since Exodar's naaru was dead, _and_ the presence of their gods brought the n’raqi great strength, their victims would be defenseless.

While that was going on, rifts to the Elemental Plane began tearing open across Azeroth. Ashenvale forest began to burn. The Sunwell fell into the sea. Uldum was buried in sand. Therazane's minions began clearing away the stone over Silithus.

Silithus… ah, the qiraji! There was so much to do. So much time. It could do it whenever it wanted, too. Qiraji next. Oh, but first, it suddenly wanted to grab some souls. Yogg-Saron teleported its body, appearing halfway over Kalimdor. It reached a tentacle around one of the 'hidden' camps in Mulgore and sucked the souls out of the tauren within. It shivered in delight as the life energy was drawn in. Oh, it would never get tired of that. These tauren souls had some 'spice' to them as well.

Right, the qiraji. It found them squatting in Ahn'Qiraj, everything from colossal gladiators and prophets to battleguards, gathered in circles and praying. It could feel echoes of power rising from their rituals, their devotion feeding both Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon as though they were offering souls.

… speaking of souls, Soggoth had reached Teldrassil and easily jumped on top of it. The woods began to wither and die around him. Yogg-Saron resolved to keep a fraction of its vast consciousness attuned to the slaughter.

"You have remained faithful," it boomed to the qiraji. It extended its sensor into them, reading them inside and out. It even found those qiraji who had attacked it on its expedition; they knew who 'Sara' was and wanted to rescue it from the mortals, but the obsidian destroyer they brought _hadn't_ recognized the human as a friendly. They'd nearly gotten it killed.

It felt forgiving. It only made its telepathy a _little_ painful to them. "You have remained faithful, and so you shall reap the rewards of your service. The lesser races have spent ages upon this world, conquering it, sealing you, denying you your place. Now." A flash of conjuration magic, and millions of weapons and armor pieces of all types appeared in Silithus. "Now go. Spread like fire," it explained, rapidly accelerating the incubation of larval qiraji. "Wash over this world and bring them to heel!"

They cheered. Yogg-Saron wrenched its focus away.

"Qiraji are back with us," it told Tsa'Thannon.

"Wonderful!" it cheered. "I was just finishing up the mantid. They're pretty scattered though, and a little sore about Y'Shaarj…"

They lapsed into silence, remembering Rage Unbound's fate.

Yogg-Saron changed the subject. "I don't think I'll bring back the nerubians though," it said, thinking about the spiders it had killed erupting from Northrend. "They think they're too good to fall in line with the others, they can stay down."

"Right, right," Tsa'Thannon said. "However, I think it bears mentioning we should go at least a _little_ light on these mortals." It sent Yogg-Saron an image of what it was doing: Ironforge and Gnomeregan both erupted from the ground, surrounded by halos of darkness, and their people were shaken loose and held in the air. "Look at how slowly they reproduce! The quickest take eighteen years, ridiculous! If we just go about it normally we'll run out of them within a week!"

"We could always boost their reproduction rates," Yogg-Saron offered. "Or conjure more of them if we run out."

"That's always an option," it admitted. "Still, let's hold off on giving them _everything_ until we figure it out. By the way, have you seen Neptulon?"

"He should be squatting in…" It found a water elemental in the oceans and tore its mind apart for answers. "… the south east lower quadrant of the Abyssal Maw." Suddenly, souls appeared in its lesser mouths and Yogg-Saron started chewing. Its entire body shuddered, sending a tremor throughout Azeroth. Houses collapsed.

_Oooh,_ it hadn't had proper sacrifices in so long… it had a lot of catching up to do.

So, there was Therazane working to uncover the bodies of the other Old Gods. Soggoth was having fun. The qiraji and mantid would start to recover their numbers and wash over the world. Tsa'Thannon had probably brought its own n'raqi back by now. Vezax…

_'General Vezax,'_ it told him. _'Start assembling my throne in Northrend. Coordinate with Therazane if you must. Leave the souls of any dragons you find intact, I've plans for them.'_

_'It will be done, O' Great One!'_ he confirmed.

… now Vezax was busy too. Yogg-Saron extended its magical sensors over the world. There were some mortals and immortals alike who, seeing what was happening, tried taking their own lives. Yeah… no. They weren't getting off that easily. It brought them back to life and trapped them in dark bubbles, devoting part of its focus to inventing tortures for them personally.

Like one of the women among them with a fear of drowning. It threw stone weights on her limbs and tossed her to the bottom of the sea, but with a modified version of the Unending Breath spell to both let her resist pressure, and breathe underwater… while not feeling like she could. She could stay down there until she starved. Or was eaten, whichever came first. Either way, the terror and trauma of the would-be suicidals was a good snack.

… there, in Tanaris! It found the bronze dragons there. They were charging for the Caverns of Time, the door of which was open. It wasn't just the Bronze Flight either. They were frantically ushering in members of all other Flights, including wagons full of eggs, into the caverns. Yogg-Saron was intrigued. What were they doing?

A fraction of a second later it understood. They were evacuating.

_Not so fast!_

Yogg-Saron instantly summoned a shadow nova on their position outside the caverns, blowing the remaining dozens – and in its haste, their souls – to splinters. But by then the rest were inside the Caverns, and the spiral purple door slammed shut.

It wasn't going to just _let_ the dragons get away, though. It reached a tendril over there and ripped open the door to look inside… and found nothing but a regular cavern, dripping with increasingly sterile water.

Alright, a second attempt. It shut the door and wove its vast magic around the complex, then opened again. _There_ were the Caverns of Time, extending in vast geometric shapes with currents of time flowing across their walls. But scanning the inside, Yogg-Saron noted the complex was completely deserted, and all the paths that should've led to other times were dead ends.

Fine then! They got away to some distant point in the past where it hadn't yet come back. Let them squat there. That still left thousands of dragons in the present for it to torment.

Speaking of dragons, there was something else, near the northern half of Kalimdor. Yogg-Saron crawled that way, sending mile-high waves through the ocean. Dragons, emerging from a hidden cave system in the depths of Hyjal. They stood on a cliff overlooking Winterspring, shielding their eyes from the dim sun and looking around in awe. Dragonspawn, drakonids, drakes, and fully grown dragons. But that wasn't the interesting part. It was their scale color.

"Well look at this!" it told Tsa'Thannon. "Remember the Twilight Dragons I told you about? N'Zoth's business? Looks like they've been busy digging a hole and hiding in it."

Yogg-Saron felt the other Old God turn its attention to the dragons. "Well wouldn't you know. How do you want to go about this?"

"I'd say disguises." Its voice turned gleeful. "After all, we wouldn't want to overwhelm the poor things, would we?" it said in a sickening sweet voice.

The emerging thirteen hundred seventy two Twilight dragons – not counting the sixty three eggs they had hidden in the caverns – stood on the cliff, marveling at the dark blue sky, and at the presence of Yogg-Saron in the distance.

Then it created its Sara avatar. Not the human self it'd been inhabiting for nearly three decades, but the vrykul it had used to try and deceive the Liberality Confederacy a literal lifetime ago. _That_ Sara had the same straight brown hair and glowing eyes, but was tan and muscular as well as twice the size of a human.

She had a brown skirt over brown pants and shoes, fingerless gloves with colossal orange crystals, a very immodest brown top with a fur collar, a short cape, a headband, and vrykul tattoos on her shoulders. She appeared floating in the air higher than the fully grown dragons, gazing down at them.

Tsa'Thannon's avatar appeared beside her. It had decided to take on a mantid's body, flying in the air with still wings and folded forelegs. 'His' armor was elaborate and jagged, a sharp contrast to Sara's caster robes.

"Kneel," she commanded with the volume of something ten thousand times her size. Some additional force went to the sides, deliberately blasting away the snow around them and leaving naught but jagged rocks.

The dragons knelt, collapsing to their forelegs and trembling.

"Who among you dares speak for all of you?" Tsa'Thannon's avatar asked with similar volume.

The dragons hesitated. Sara didn't mind waiting, most of her focus was on watching Therazane and Neptulon unearthing C'Thun and N'Zoth. Eventually one of them came forth, a male dragon with all six of his tusks – a feature unique to their Flight – sheathed. "I do, great ones." He remained on bowed forelegs. "I am Revalion," he said, eyes on the ground. She had to give him credit for keeping his voice steady, though. "Long have we awaited the day of your glorious return, though I lament that we could not do more to assist –"

While he rambled pointless platitudes, Sara went through their minds. Their dispositions, histories, every corner of their souls opened to her. It was about what she'd expected. N'Zoth's influence had been quiet during the Cataclysm; it could only just manage physical corruption and settled for brainwashing to ensure loyalty. Then the Deathwing plan went belly-up and the Twilight dragons, led by the drake Goriona, hid under Hyjal, content to live quietly.

Then came the naga war, with N'Zoth's doomed bid for freedom. When _that_ happened its corruption had boiled forth, reaching the dragons' minds and twisting them to fit their physical corruption. They were loyal. They'd serve well if allowed to.

Sara and Tsa'Thannon exchanged a few thoughts. His mantid avatar flicked a foreleg and sent a few spikes out. They grew dramatically mid-flight, forming stone spires that crashed around Revalion. He gasped in fright and shut up.

"You'll serve," Tsa'Thannon said. _'So, I'm thinking the one in the back, that Oediona, she'd make a good replacement for the Dragonqueen.'_

_'I was thinking of Revalion,'_ Yogg-Saron replied. _'He was the only one with the nerve. Plus, initial analysis suggests he's a lot crueler than Oediona.'_

_'Let's have them fight it out,'_ Tsa'Thannon explained.

_'Make a game of it too. Let's empower them to above Aspect levels and go to death.'_

_'Above the ocean too. Electric storm cloud barriers?'_

_'Who's the new Windlord? El'Jedinu? Get him to do it.'_

_'On it,'_ the other Old God responded.

Sara turned to Revalion and snapped her finger, dragging a surprised Oediona forward. She nearly lost bladder control as she was pulled beside him. "You two will fight to the death. Whoever wins will be the monarch of dragons and ruler of your Flight." She turned her burning gaze on the others. "As for the rest of you?" She clapped once and they were frozen in place, silently screaming as raw agony assaulted their _every_ nerve. "We'll get some mileage out of you until then." Revalion and Oediona had turned around to see their fellow dragons be petrified and turned to each other in shock.

They gulped nervously and unsheathed their tusks for battle. Oediona pounced on him with a roar, but Sara forced them apart. Ambitious, she had to admit she was impressed. But still…

"Not. Yet," she growled, setting the very stone around them ablaze with black flame. She turned to the mantid avatar. "Is it ready?"

He held up a pincer. "It's ready… now."

They shattered their avatars and teleported their contestants to above the ocean. El'Jenidu the Windlord, appearing identical to Al'Akir save for the bright purple glow of Tsa'Thannon's empowerment, floated in the distance. He channeled a colossal storm, shaped like a squat cylinder. Its dark gray clouds crackled with lightning and were thick enough to be nearly solid. In there, Oediona and Revalion appeared on opposite sides, still held in place with shadow chains.

Then Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon's power flowed into them. Rivers of darkness surrounded the dragons and infused the pair. They couldn't move to roar, but Yogg-Saron drank their creamy pain in anyway, adding it to the pain of the other Twilight dragons, the mortals who had tried to kill themselves, and the souls offered to it from Darnassus and Exodar. The rumbling in its stomachs quieted down… for the moment.

Once it was done, both Oediona and Revalion had grown to thrice their size, imbued with as much power as the Old Gods could give before causing mutations. Twilight lightning crackled between their horns and their scales were stronger than titanium. They could each take on a lesser Titan and prevail… this would be interesting.

"Fight," it commanded them, and they let loose. Yogg-Saron turned its attention to Tsa'Thannon, who was closely inspecting the mortals it had shaken into the air from Ironforge. "Revalion's going to win, you know."

"You wish!" it replied. Oediona ducked underneath Revalion and barreled into him, biting his underbelly and drawing purple blood. He twisted away and raked his claws down her face, nearly gouging out an eye. "She's as good as won. Oh, by the way, looks like Therazane's almost done."

They both turned their attention to Silithus. Therezane had cleared out a sizable part of Silithus, taking care to avoid the swarming qiraji. It wasn't large enough to fully expose C'Thun's body, but it didn't need to be. Yogg-Saron could do the rest. Besides, it was impatient.

Tsa'Thannon shared its thought. While Yogg-Saron tore C'Thun's bulbous body up from lower Kalimdor and the southern sea, the other deity ripped up the ocean floor and brought up N'Zoth, whose body resembled a sprawling carnivorous plant, with the mouth in the middle. They also grabbed Y'Shaarj's one remaining heart, all that had survived its encounter with the Pantheon.

Hovering above the seas, they positioned themselves on either side of where the Maelstom had been, the corpses of all three gods hovering between them.

They were both silent as they reflected. Yogg-Saron had not, in this life, known them. But in its past life it did, and the memories now were vivid enough to taste. When the Old Gods were young and had not yet grown into their power, had not given the void lords the idea to try and replicate them, they'd been only five of many in a world of eat-or-be-eaten.

C'Thun, the All-Seeing, God of Havoc, had been the one to go against that order. It saved Yogg-Saron and spared it. Without that act of convenient kindness, none of this would have happened. Azeroth would have never been theirs. Sara would never have existed and gone through her twenty five years of life. Yogg-Saron would never have created and killed billions. And when C'Thun needed them most, they weren't there. They _couldn't_ be there.

N'Zoth, the Corruptor, God of Defilement, had been closest to it. The Old Gods couldn't exactly call each other 'friends'. Not the way lesser beings could. It wasn't to say they weren't close. They'd gone through so much together, but there simply wasn't a word for it. Not parts of the whole. Not soulmates or love. It was more an understanding, comradery, a solidarity that the five of them were unique. But N'Zoth, in its past life, was the one that came closest to that word. All the endless war games they played with each other, the puzzles and scenarios they dreamt up together… and it was all for naught now.

And finally Y'Shaarj. Rage Unbound, God of Cruelty. It started off as, by far, the weakest of them and tried so hard to impress, devising new spells and tentacles. Always so eager to spar, always so eager to grow strong and show it was useful, that it could defend itself and them. It had been the one who started everything. Who decided that, if they were the ones with the power, then they were the ones who made the rules, who decided who lived and died, who decided what was right and what was wrong. If it hadn't been for it, they might never have crafted their shifting empires.

And now all three of them were gone. Forever. The shivering wind was devoid of their whispers. The fly-blown corpse of the Titans' world would be beyond them. They'd never know of their triumph. They'd never taste vengeance. And, in this life, Yogg-Saron would never, ever meet them.

Meanwhile, Revalion grabbed Oediona and shoved her against the stormwall. She roared and spasmed as electricity coursed through her body, trying to throw her opponent off.

Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon mourned. They let the n'raqi, the mantid and the qiraji expand and wash over the world, their vile powers giving them the strength to make up for their lack of numbers. They let their minions construct their thrones, and let the elementals start to reshape the continents. It hardly mattered, at the moment, to them.

Once their moment of silence was done, they joined their power and lifted the three fallen gods. The bodies hovered out of Azeroth's atmosphere, and shot into the sun.

It needed to take its mind off of them. There was no room in this world for _them_ to be miserable. While Revalion and Oediona continued to fight to the death and light up the sky with their power, Soggoth had been busy in Darnassus. The mortals within were lined up, black metal cuffing them together while the n'raqi tore souls out of their bodies. The shells were left to drag, but they kept the spirits shackled to their tendrils and indulged in tasting them.

Yogg-Saron reached its power to the denizens of Gnomeregan, still floating in the air after Tsa'Thannon had uprooted them. It called forth arcane magic and tainted life powers, and created duplicates of the mortals' souls. It consumed some, offered others to Tsa'Thannon, and sent the remaining three thousand to General Vezax; he deserved a treat for enabling all this to happen.

The originals, it enfeebled and teleported around Silithus, right in the path of the emerging qiraji.

"Ground," Tsa'Thannon said suddenly.

"Ground?"

"For the dragons. Let's give them some ground!" it said, sounding positively inspired and eager to forget their mourning. From the ocean floor, soaking platforms of stone rose and entered the coliseum where the would-be monarchs continued to battle. Plates of rock hovered at various heights, letting the dragons settle and attack from a grounded position.

Revalion spat a twilight fireball at Oediona, who spun and smacked it aside with her glowing tail-club. It smashed into Revalion, who sailed back and broke a platform into hovering boulders. They were both bloody sights; deep wounds crisscrossed their bodies, burning with anti-healing enchantments. Revalion was missing a few talons and Oediona's left legs were limp.

"He's still going to win," Yogg-Saron said even as Oediona grabbed him and drove him into the electrified 'floor'.

"We'll see. In the meantime, want to follow their example?" Tsa'Thannon asked.

Sparring. They'd sparred in the good old days. Crawled over each other and fought, slinging fractions of their power at each other for the fun of it. Nothing serious, nothing permanent. Nothing _was_.

Yogg-Saron considered it and, on an impulse – because it could finally _follow_ its impulses now, it didn't have to deliberate! - agreed. It teleported on top of Tsa'Thannon's smaller body and began unleashing a rain of attacks, even while Tsa'Thannon retaliated in kind and impaled the God of Death with its poisoned spines. The world shook, but they made sure to go light enough to not cause any permanent damage.

Copalypse, Lady of Flame and replacement to Ragnaros, marched upon Tanaris and glassed the desert.

Therazane raised the mountains on the South Pole for Tsa'Thannon's minions to construct its throne.

El'Jenidu, replacement for Al'Akir, oversaw the spar that would determine the superficial leader of the dragons.

Neptulon boiled and salted the oceans, accelerating the currents and erosion alike to carve sharp cliffs and valleys.

In the north, Vezax organized the n'raqi to build black metal and sulfurous crystals into a throne capable of supporting a living continent. In the south, Tsa'Thannon's 'Chief Irvkik' did the same.

The dragons and mortals who'd tried to fight Yogg-Saron, and even the ones that hadn't, lay on the shattered slabs of what was once Northrend. Those that weren't dead crawled to loved ones to try and offer words of comfort. The Aspects twitched in agony, impaled on electrified spires.

Revalion, to Yogg-Saron's delight, finally delivered the killing blow and earned his right as King of Dragons. The vast power of the Old Gods drained from Oediona – Tsa'Thannon sighed in disappointment as they sparred – and she plummeted into the seas. Maybe it would resurrect her. Maybe it wouldn't. It would see what impulse took hold of it.

The Scourge's necrotic energies combusted, burning them all alive.

The mortals in Kalimdor screamed and were shackled, brought to heel by the qiraji in the south and the n'raqi in the north as they tried to plead for mercy, or to see their loved ones one more time.

The ones in the Eastern Kingdoms likewise fell to the mantid.

Between the two continents, opposite from where the Maelstrom had been, the two gods fought. They clambered over each other, laughing and splashing in the ocean, magical attacks flying out of the atmosphere. The twilight sky deepened to blood red. Souls streamed to them.

It was all as it should have been but... Yogg-Saron couldn't help but feel something was missing. Something was wrong. But what? Leira was still in her pocket dimension, safe and undiscovered. Outland would be light years away and growing more distant. The Pantheon would never come back and even if they did, just because they prevailed once didn't mean the Old Gods couldn't win a rematch. Everything was just like the good old days.

No, that was just it. They weren't just like the good old days. Where was N'Zoth to cheer on Yogg-Saron? Where was Y'Shaarj to try and give pointers to either of the duelists? Where was C'Thun to carve the mountains into twisted artwork? Less than half their number remained. Two Old Gods were not five, and Yogg-Saron had gone through a reincarnation cycle to boot. It was… not exactly an imposter, but the memories were echoes and its experience was shallow. Things would never be like they were again.

But… it wouldn't give this up. It had fought so, _so_ hard to get to the point where the planet was its playground. Yogg-Saron just had to be happy with _this_ world. Didn't it? Of course it did. Hope's End pushed down the queasy feeling in its stomachs and focused on the fight.

The uneasiness resurfaced within a second, and nothing it did could make it vanish entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do leave a comment for the hideous glory of our dark masters.


	36. Chapter 35: What if God was One of Us?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. **Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon do.**

****

**Yogg-Saron**

 ****

Days passed.

Then weeks.

Then months.

To its Titan-born residents, Azeroth was unrecognizable. Under the power of Therazane and her earth elementals, the landscape was a constantly shifting mass of stone. Sometimes the masses aligned so that the planet was speckled with islands. Sometimes there were massive continents of wildly varying shape and number, broken intermittently with volcanoes and lava flows. Sometimes the world was mostly subsumed by oceans. Sometimes there was hardly any water left. Beaches of sand, canyons, mountain ranges, uprooted hills levitating in the atmosphere. It all shifted unpredictably.

The air was similarly chaotic. Sometimes it was calm and still. Sometimes the wind threatened to rip flesh from bone. Waterspouts, tornadoes, hurricanes, storms and more raged across the land at the whims of the Old Gods, painting the red sky with white clouds. The oceans varied wildly between combinations of calm and wild, salt and fresh, freezing and boiling.

The Black Empire was once again established. Unnatural metals were unearthed and used to build structures of unique designs that could withstand the rampant changes of environment. Vast citadels spread across the earth like cancer. The n'raqi, mantid and qiraji joined together in placing beneath them the races they had sought to subjugate for so long. Rivers of darkness shrouded the world; nothing was untouched.

Currently, Yogg-Saron's true from rested in its colossal throne at the north pole. Its vast consciousness was split across many tasks. Savoring the souls it received via sacrifice. Singling out mortals to give its personal _attention,_ and more. One part of its awareness was focused on an avatar.

The troll man it created was on one of the floating hills, at the upper part of the planet's atmosphere. Purple light flared around 'his' feet as he slid down the hill's thick snowy covering.

Red snow, because why stick with white if you could _change_ things?

He skied down the floating, tumbling slopes, Tsa'Thannon's tauren woman avatar behind him. She was closing in alarmingly fast, but he was almost at the edge. Yogg-Saron pondered what to do rapidly. He still had two of his allotted concussive blasts, but he'd save that for later.

His avatar's skin prickled, and he ducked, descending into a split as Tsa'Thannon sent a blast of compressed air through where his head had been just a moment ago.

"That's two down!" he jeered, accelerating forward and off the edge of the floating rock. Crimson powder followed after him as he tumbled, high above the world, with Tsa'Thannon right behind him.

Weightlessness overtook him. He took a moment to take in the view. Azeroth extended all around, and they were so high up he could see the curvature of the world, and the reddish air far below. Stormclouds, in giant anvil shapes, clung just above the land, crackling with electricity and casting shadows beneath. Lesser clouds dotted the airspace between them, everything from wispy cirrus to dense sheets of stratus. In the distance was a hurricane, enormous and smooth. From so high up it appeared stationary.

The oceans were blue and filled with the white froth of waves. Land dotted the waters. The portion of Azeroth they were over currently had a series of small islands dotting it. Connecting them were black wires – bridges from up close – and each island was a multitude of colors. Purple, green, neon orange, whatever fungi, plants, microbes and animals that Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon decided to cook up.

There was also Tsa'Thannon's body in the distance. The colossal gray starfish-like creature was flush against the ground, contending with the hurricane in size. Spikes rose up past Yogg-Saron's avatar and straight out of the atmosphere. Even from this distance, the troll avatar could see its millions of tentacles waving about.

Then gravity took control again, and Yogg-Saron's sightseeing came to an abrupt end. He went plummeting down onto the next snow-covered floating rock, Tsa'Thannon right behind him.

The two of them continued to ski, blasting each other with the various allotted magics. In this case, some restrictions were allowed. They were not rules of a society to follow, made to restrict him and keep him from unleashing what he could _really_ do. They were the rules of a game, restrictions put in place to test them, push them, make them think and plan and be surprised by what the other planned.

Rock by rock, drift by drift, they lowered. The atmosphere screamed around them, going so fast it felt like they'd ignite into shooting stars. Yogg-Saron laughed, then his laughter was cut off when Tsa'Thannon's final concussive blast caught him in the side, sending him into a rock so hard he left a crater. He recovered, only to find the 'tauren woman' had already skied off the rock and into the air, vanishing into a cloudbank.

He growled, pulled himself out and followed, plunging into the fluffy vapor. The moment he did, wild winds blasted him to the side so hard his avatar nearly threw up. The disorientation was… fascinating. He had no idea which way was up or down!

Eventually, the droplets stinging his eyes gave way to open skies. Ahead, he could see Tsa'Thannon's avatar plummeting for the next rock like a comet. The rocks had been uprooted at random and tossed into the air haphazardly with no concern for making a path. They'd play it by the ear. After all, even if the avatars could feel pain, the Old Gods themselves were functionally invincible.

Tsa'Thannon was getting awfully close to making landfall, though. Yogg-Saron had used up all his concussive blasts, but he still had a few fireballs and frostwalls saved up for this occasion. He waved his hand and a wall of frozen water appeared before Tsa'Thannon… but by then he was moving so fast he just _shot_ right through it.

"Oh no," he said. Yogg-Saron threw out his remaining spells, forcing the tauren to weave between fireballs and crash through ice barriers, but it wasn't enough. The choppy waters of the sea grow closer and closer, enough so that Yogg-Saron could make out the individual waves. Tsa'Thannon landed first, flipping over and landing on one knee as though the ocean was solid ground. The shockwave was strong enough to send the water sailing back, leaving a short lived ring of calm.

Yogg-Saron touched down a full ten seconds later in bitter defeat, his landing releasing a similar shockwave. He turned towards Tsa'Thannon, frowning. "Well, you got me," he admitted. On a whim he turned the ocean beneath her into a liquid again and she sunk, then came back up soaked.

He only had to wonder what her revenge would be for a moment before the water around him turned to a shark mouth and chopped his avatar in two.

In a flash he summoned another, this time an n'raqi avatar that towered over the tauren. "So," Tsa'Thannon said. "I think I'm going to finish up that puzzle I'm building."

"I'm going to…" Yogg-Saron spun a wheel in its mind. "… just drift around in an avatar." The faceless avatar floated up and collapsed into that of human-Sara, with the trademark glowing eyes. "See you later."

"Indeed," the other replied.

Then 'Sara' zipped away, floating on magic and hopelessness, heading north away from Tsa'Thannon's mountainous body, writhing and squirming on the horizon. The air was filled with silver streaks streaming towards it, souls that had been sacrificed to the other deity.

As Sara flew, she sighed, looking around in contentment. This was… nice. She enjoyed this. She drifted past a few black spires, atop which n'raqi generals – c'thrax – stood, bellowing orders. She turned the other way and saw a massive spire of black and gold amber. Extending her sensors inside she saw the mantid, working furiously on rebuilding their numbers, and as the eggs hatched the newborns were instantly sent into battle… against some mortal thralls. There was also a massive hive buried into the land, filled to the brim with silithid and qiraji, going about their business of slave mining.

"Hmm." Sara drifted straight down, passing through stone and sediment, through flowing veins of liquid gold and mercury. The pressure mounted and the temperature rose. Soon, Sara arrived, invisible, in a tunnel within the mantle of the world. The air shimmered with temperature in the hundreds of degrees, and the walls glowed a dull reddish-brown.

There were miners here, members of the Titans' world standing barefoot with solid iron sickles in their hands, kept alive and intact by way of magic. Not that it did anything to repel the sensation of burning itself. As they dug, finding golden veins and chunks of lead, a qiraji gladiator stood, one of his pincers holding a shimmering blue orb. _He_ was protected entirely from the heat.

Sara allowed herself to become visible, exuding an eldritch aura that left no doubt as to her identity. "I feel," she said in Common, and it was so rare for her to _use_ that language that the novelty struck her in the chest. "… that you all may be getting used to this heat." They shivered but didn't dare look her way, didn't dare stop their work. "Time for a change." She twisted a hand and the glowing heat instantly vanished.

Liquid nitrogen appeared from nothingness and flooded the room, steaming and cracking the stone with far less intensity than it would otherwise. Screams of pain filled the air as various mortals were stabbed with flakes of stone. Darkness consumed the tunnel. In time, the liquid nitrogen would vaporize and the planet's heat would flow in. Until then, they wouldn't freeze and they wouldn't drown. Bleeding out however, or disappointing the qiraji and having him kill them, was still on the table.

Sara vanished again, leaving them to their fate. She ascended rapidly, floating through the air on a whim and a breeze, taking in the sights.

She could still hardly believe it. She'd actually done it. Hardly a year ago, her greatest ambition was to be an _Archmage,_ to spend her remaining sixty or so years of life holed up in a room doing research. And look at her now! The God of Death, co-ruler of an entire planet. All powerful. All seeing – _that was C'Thun's title_ – and immortal. All her prior ambitions seemed so… fleeting. Like jokes.

She had to admit though… she was a little worried about the future. Not in the way of her life and limb and freedom but still. It was just her and Tsa'Thannon now. Leira, locked in a hallucination of being a hero, didn't count. Her previous incarnation's parents were out of the equation. And with just one Old God, however chaotic they were and however creative they were, eventually they were going to have to run out of options.

Eventually, they were going to be bored.

That was the problem with a life that extended to infinity. Eventually they'd see every possible combination of atoms there was to see, and then what? Just go to sleep in a lower plane for the rest of time? Keep rehashing the same old same old _forever?_ Not just a long time, but truly forever? Not a million years. Not a trillion, or a googolplex, or any of the absurdly high numbers that mathematics could compute. _Forever._ Void, that boredom problem may manifest sooner rather than later…

Bah, that was future Yogg-Saron's problem. 

Standing in the middle of the air, she moved her arms in circular patterns. Fireballs, icicles, shadow bolts and more appeared, rotating closer to her. They spun around and she extended her hands, enlarging their orbits. Then she cupped both hands together, world-shaking violet magic pooling within.

The magic faded and suddenly Sara's avatar was yanked over to its true body. There was one feature left over from Northrend. A mountain, incorporated into the tip of its throne. On it were, just as it had left them, the four Aspects, impaled through the chest and trapped in various, shifting nightmare scenarios. Sara flew over to Alexstrasza and opened her mouth.

The former Dragonqueen twitched in agony as the essence of her soul was torn off, white strands and streamers flowing from her scales and into Sara's mouth. Even though it was just a projection made of magic, she still shivered in ecstasy. She drained off of Nozdormu, Kalecgos and Ysera as well, taking more and more. It was like cotton candy, sweet and fluffy. It was like beef stew, savory and thick. It was everything she could have ever wanted and more, so she drained power from the magical Hearts until the Aspects died, then she brought them back and continued to feast like the glutton she could afford being. Eventually, the god had her fill and left them be.

Floating just aside the mountain was an orb of swarming wasps. Sara snapped her fingers. Now it was an orb of dense, searing smoke. The occupant wasn't visible, but the orb did fluctuate as Wrathion struggled within. He thought he was 'free' of the Old Gods? That having a little Titan tech waved over him as an egg would make him untouchable?

Hilarious. She ground her teeth – and her true body its many fangs – in anger just thinking about it, and sent another spike of searing pain to the black drake trapped within the sphere.

No. Calm. There was no need to be angry. Everything was right. Everything was as it should be. Maybe it'd pay a visit to some dragons _worth_ keeping around. She soared away from the Aspects at supersonic speeds, busting through clouds and tearing through wind currents. It took a few laps around the globe, but she found where the new Dragonfall Temple had drifted.

Dragonfall Temple was an open and unashamed mockery of Wyrmrest. It clung to the underside of a floating boulder, upside down so that the Dragonking's chamber was on the lowest floor. The metal was, instead of silver and bronze, putrid black snapsteel and dark saronite. Parts of it had also been corrupted into flesh by Tsa'Thannon, covered in glowing yellow eyes. Dark blue forms flew around the island as it drifted in the breeze, suspended high above the clouds.

Sara hovered into the lowest room, where Revalion sat on his haunches at the inverted dome forming the 'floor'. Pillars of betentacled flesh surrounded them. Around the dragon's hind legs were spires of black stone, shooting up around him and forming a throne. Shackled to it was one female dragon of each Flight save for Bronze. There was even a fellow Twilight; Oediona, Revalion's challenger. They'd taken the liberty of reviving her and uncorrupting her mind. There were some other dragons around, twilight drakes and twilight dragonspawn but none of them were of any importance. Some meeting with Revalion or other. Whatever.

"Well, well, well," she said, floating in on Revalion. The dragons all gasped and fell into bows, trembling in fear of invoking Yogg-Saron's wrath. The Twilight Aspect was no exception. Quietly, Sara nodded to herself. Good, good. They knew their place. "Revalion, up." In a flash, the twilights which had been meeting with the Aspect about some hidden mortal camp or other were teleported randomly around the globe.

Revalion raised his head. "Yes, O' Great One?" he asked quietly.

"First off, we didn't give you this temple so you could lounge about it all the time, nor did we give you power surpassing a Titan Aspect's just so you could use it to look scary and rape your consorts. Get out there, start maiming, or helping, or whatever whim takes hold. Show your lessers exactly what you think of them."

He trembled. "Understood, master. Get outside Dragonfall, exercise my power on the lesser beings."

"Exactly." She stepped closer, warping space so that his shackled consorts were far away, enlarging her avatar so that she towered over the dragon.

Then, after a moment's thought, she extended her hand, stripped his magical resistance, and blasted Revalion with shadow energy. Black lightning crackled around him and he instantly died. Then, just as quickly, he was alive and hyperventilating. Then he died again, and came back. And again, and again, and again, quicker and quicker until the cracks of her magic following each other sounded like a steady hum.

Eventually she tired of that and let the Aspect live, shrinking herself back to normal. "Oh, and what was it those drakes were telling you about?" she asked the panting, heaving dragon.

He threw up, and she turned the vomit to… hmm, red wine as it came out, coating the floor. "My patience is very limited," she warned, idly slamming his Blue slave into the pillars telekinetically.

"A hidden camp," he stammered. "Of mortals, trying to resist you. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to imply your worships were unaware of them – "

She cut him off, saying, "Correct, we are aware of them. Continue." She changed the red wine into fire ants and let go of the Blue dragon.

He eyed the skittering insects warily, but didn't dare breathe twilight flame on them in Sara's presence. Not that she'd have minded. " – but my Skyterrors were reporting that they're preparing a raid on a qiraji mine to free the slaves and we were planning on stopping them, master."

Now _that_ Sara was unaware of. She casually changed her avatar into that of a dwarven man. "Is that so?" he asked. "Well, ignore it. I'll go deal with it. I've been meaning to check up on them anyway." Far off, another part of its consciousness finished strangling an unlucky gnome to death with its tentacles. It debated reviving him, but instead just ate the soul and sent the body to the bottom of the sea.

"Understood, my lord," Revalion said, bowing lowly.

"Excellent. Carry on." Suddenly his eyes were empty caverns, ringed with gaping fangs that dripped with some unknowable fluid. "Don't forget what I told you here today," he intoned lowly before shattering the avatar with the sound of forks on glass.

* * *

Davren Firestorm

Their camp was filled with the muted hum of people going back and forth, stockpiling and checking. The fluorescent rocks providing their cave light shimmered on the walls, bathing them in scarlet light. In the middle of it their leader, the forsaken man Torrow Villes, was busy coordinating the last of their preparations. Davren watched from the sidelines.

"Sixty-two holy amulets?" the undead asked warily.

"Sixty -four, sir!" the kaldorei woman corrected, handing over a box. "Exactly as you requested."

"Excellent," Torrow said, sending her off and handing the box to one of his subordinates. He turned to someone else, a troll mage. "Ration conjuration?"

"A little behind, mon," the other man said with a frown. "Ley lines shifted away this mornin'."

Torrow cursed quietly. "Alright, then try to catch up, at all costs. We'll be having a lot of visitors." He turned to a pandaren woman. "Mindwipe pills ready?"

She held up a filthy glass box, within which were over a dozen small, vibrating orbs of arcane magic. "All set, sir."

"Wonderful." Now Torrow turned to him, yellow eyes piercing through his soul. "Davren, is your team ready to move?"

He nodded grimly. "As ready as we'll ever be." Davren couldn't help a shiver going down his spine. This was incredibly dangerous... but it had to be done. They couldn't keep squatting in this hole forever.

"Excellent. Gather them here, it's time to begin."

Davren nodded and walked away from Torrow. He pushed through their camp, slipping between passing lines of people until he reached the far side of their cave. His team was no more than half a dozen strong, including himself. It included a human man, who'd been a farmer. A pandaren monk, even an ice troll woman, and many more. Their mission was as simple as it was dangerous. Infiltrate a qiraji compound and rescue the slaves within.

"Torrow says it's time," he announced to them where they sat in a huddle, eating their conjured rations. They were already geared up, which was not saying much. There were no tailors anymore, no supplies of thread and wool. All the clothing and equipment they had was what they'd had before the Rise of the Old Gods. Months into their reign, they had little more than rags and battered armor, the heaviest of which was chain mail. Meanwhile their enemies had the full power of not one, but two eldritch deities behind them. They weren't going to win any fights anytime soon. "He's got the supplies all set up for us at the east, let's go!"

The atmosphere was heavy and tense as the six of them geared up. Mindwipe pellets in case they got captured by the enemy. Whatever enchanted clothing they could find. Spiritual ankhs and holy candles. Rations, all blessed by the Holy Light. They strapped everything onto their backs in large, brown leather backpacks. Their portal expert - the ice troll woman, Karika - went over the coordinates for their camp's anchor one last time. It was a tricky one, because it kept moving as their little bubble of shelter was jostled around the globe.

Within an hour, it was all set. They huddled together, gnomish cloaking generators distributed among them. "We ready?" Davren asked. His five subordinates nodded. "Alright, then let's move. We all know what to do. Run in, get them, portal out. Easy as that." He brought his hands together and began to fashion a Mass Teleport. Arcane light pooled in his hands and filled the air with ozone. Around them, the remaining four dozen of their group knelt and offered them their last prayers. Then the spell in his hands took form, and the six of them were _yanked_ upwards, through stone and dirt and filth, to the surface of Azeroth.

He had no idea what to expect. The landscape kept changing. For all they knew, they'd arrive at the bottom of the ocean. But they needed to rescue someone, anyone. It wasn't a trip of pure altruism. Those who had been taken in by the Old Gods' servants could possibly know their weakness. They were desperate, they'd take anything!

But Davren wasn't getting his hopes up.

He braced himself as he reappeared... but nothing could have prepared him for the furnace blast of heat. His eyes were treated to what Azeroth had become, and he couldn't keep his jaw from dropping. The sky was pitch black, and the stars were a chaotic rainbow of colors. The White Lady and Blue Child seemed... _larger_ than he remembered. Clouds covered the sky like a transparent quilt, the color of dried blood. The ground beneath their feet was black obsidian, threatening to crack like glass beneath their shoes. Davren took a look around and his heart sank lower still.

They stood on an island of black stone, covered in strange, bright yellow growths the size of a house that looked almost fungal. Around their island the dark ocean rushed like a waterfall of oil, spraying them with scalding freshwater. And connected to their island was an enormous construct. It was black and dark green metal, shaped like a pyramid with its top sliced off and replaced with towering spires. From so far away, he could see enormous insectoid creatures standing on top, their claws raised to the bloody sky in praise.

Silently, Davren gestured to his comrades and pointed towards it. They nodded and, crouched low to the ground as if they weren't invisible to anyone outside their group, they crept forward.

From one side of the pyramid, a colossal chain came out. The construct floated in the searing ocean, seemingly heedless of the rushing water. The chain secured it to their island, and it was so enormous it could easily fit all six of them with room to spare. So, obviously, they were going to climb it.

They got in line and, step by step, climbed up the chain. Its green, twisting metal hurt to look at for long, and the constant spray of the now-freezing saltwater stung Davren's eyes. On the horizon, he saw an approaching _wall_ of pitch black clouds crackling with nonstop lightning, filling the tepid air with ozone even from so far away. He gulped, then nearly fell off when the earth quaked. A glance behind him showed a mountain _raising_ up from the ocean at a jawdropping rate. Stone and sand flowed upwards like water in reverse. The mountain punctured through the skies.

He shook his head and gestured for everyone else to move forward. "We can't stop for anything," he mouthed. "Keep going."

Not soon enough, they reached the end of the chain and were deposited at the very top of the construction. It vibrated under his feet as it continued to endure the waves... then suddenly fell silent as the ocean stopped moving. In its place, a gale wind picked up and nearly blew him off his feet with gusts of scorching, dry air that reeked of mold and death, so putrid he nearly threw up. But they were on top, with qiraji and mantid chanting filthy, unknowable words around him.

He found a way down, a steep ramp that lead into a hole in the earth. Silent as the grave, they approached it and slid down the black metal that - as Alenn found out - burned to the touch no matter the temperature. Good thing they had shoes.

Inside, it was nearly too dark to see. The only light came from glowing yellow sacks on the walls, which he dared not look closely at. His heart hammered in his chest as the wind continued to howl outside. The tainted metal beneath his feet seemed to squirm hungrily, eager for his leather shoes to wear away so it could get at his tender flesh. The qiraji patrolled the halls. Eerily humanoid battleguards, towering gladiators, and at one point he even saw a prophet, dressed in robes and giving a sermon to a crowd of bowing battleguards and mantid. In its magic were suspended various prisoners. He didn't want to look any closer.

Screams echoed through the halls as they went deeper and deeper. As they searched for anyone they could free, they passed by several open rooms in which they saw... by the Sun, such horrible things. A mantid, kneeling over the body of a tauren man that was peeled open. The bull was still alive and frozen in place. Holding pens where people lay in squalor, starved to twigs and twitching as they laid, nearly naked, on the black metal. Sacrifices slowly suffocating, held not at their necks but at their _souls_ by towering faceless ones. He saw other things too, each worse than the last. The Old Gods were evidently as _creative_ as they were cruel.

Davren's blood ran cold in his veins. The lump in his throat was far too large to swallow. They went deeper and deeper, the stench and heat and all around _awfulness_ lingering wherever they tried to go. They just needed some people they could break out. Just a _few._ Then this would all be worth it.

Karika ran in front of him and held up her hands. He stopped, and so did the other four. She pointed to his left, and he followed her finger. His gaze fell upon another ramp, going deep into the earth. It was worth a shot.

He took the lead and led them into it, plunging further down. The black metal continued wrapping around them, occasionally punctured by a luminous sack or a glowing crystal that gave him a killer headache just being around, nevermind _looking_ at. The ramp came to another cell, but this one was something they could work with. For starters there wasn't any guard, and the reason for that was evident. All the prisoners, malnourished to the extreme, were bound in the black metal. Shackles around their wrists, ankles, _necks,_ leading to chains that hooked into the walls. Limbs spread so tight he thought they'd pop off and _by the Light it gets worse the more I look stop looking stop looking!_

"Slow and steady," he mouthed. "Be patient, don't mess this up."

Urven, the local draenei shaman, put a hand on his shoulder. "We can't break the chains without making a lot of noise," he mouthed.

Davren nodded. "Then we'll teleport them out of the chains. Karika, can you set up the portal? I'll get them out. First, everyone get to someone and get ready to extend the invisibility." There were eight prisoners here. A bit more than he'd expected to find, but nothing they couldn't handle. There was a human man, with dirtied blonde hair and muted blue eyes, staring into the distance. A human woman, with brown hair and brown eyes and a permanent scowl affixed to her tortured features. A goblin, an orc, even a tuskarr...

He came next to the human man, who kept staring vacantly, twitching slightly as the metal bands burned his soul. He raised three fingers, counted down to two, one, _zero!_

Davren's fingers tapped the engineering mechanism wrapped around his waist. With six muted flashes of arcane light, the prisoners became invisible and, as such, able to see them.

They screamed. Or at least they tried, but no sound came of their vocal cords as they jolted weakly within their shackles. Davren approached the human man and held a finger to his lips. "Shh," he whispered as quietly as possible, glancing over his shoulders to check for guards. "Shh. We're getting you out of here. We've got a portal set up. I need to teleport you out of those chains first." Davren held up his hands and began to pool arcane light. "Hold still."

Anxiety tingled throughout his body. They were so close, but this was by far the most touch-and-go part of the mission. The part where they had the greatest chance of being exposed. Breathing was shallow and nerves were tense as, one by one, Davren teleported the prisoners out of their shackles, where his team would do whatever they could to get them off the burning floor. The human man started sobbing. The brown haired woman just silently glared at everyone. The goblin started shaking violently for a few terrifying seconds. Davren tried not to look too closely at their bodies, at the bony ribs and mutilated scars...

For what must've been the hundredth time, he nearly threw up.

Finally, the last of the prisoners was free. "Karika," he mouthed, picking up the human woman in his arms like a newborn. Sun, she was so light... "Get us out of here!"

The troll nodded and brought her hands together to start preparing her spell. They gathered around her, holding their breaths. Could it be? Were they actually about to pull this off?

A gaping wound opened in the fabric of reality. The bright blue portal was a welcome sight in the dark and dreary caverns, even if he couldn't _see_ where it was leading. That was normal ever since the Old Gods broke out. One by one they filed in, with Davren entering last, the woman trembling weakly in his arms and trying to claw his skin. He walked through the portal and was _flung_ through the Nether. The arcane winds jostled around him, threatening to toss him and his cargo into the void between worlds, but then his vision cleared and he was back in camp, safe.

Holy shit. They actually did it.

What came next was a blur. Healers crowded in around them, taking the former prisoners out of their arms. There was food and water provided, medical attention, ragged screams, healing magic, and an _incredible_ amount of sobbing all around. Poor things. He couldn't imagine what they went through, nor did he want to. Eventually, Davren retired to his bed, which was not much more than a square of the ground cleared away for him to sleep on. It was just rocks, but even so he fell fast asleep.

His nightmares woke him up no less than five times that 'night'.

The next day went by as most of them had, except with the addition of eight traumatized prisoners. The woman he'd rescued kept staring at him, too. Beyond that, it was business as usual. Help conjure food and water maintain the air and dispose of waste, pray to the Light for shelter and watch as the shamans pray to the elementals to keep them safe. Talk to people, tell stories, play games, and try to keep boredom at bay. Except now also contribute his meager medical knowledge, sit idly by as their priests did their best to help with the mental trauma. No information yet about any Old God weaknesses, but they had to be patient.

It was excruciatingly slow going.

A week later, it was time for lunch. All sixty-two of them gathered in the center of the stony pocket, bathing in dim red light. The meal was conjured water in leather flasks and conjured biscuits that had all the nutritional value they needed, which also meant they tasted like paper. But while Devran was used to choking it down, the former prisoners - Tamusk, Sarah, Prisleon, Jameson, and so forth - devoured it like it was the best food they'd had in months. Probably was, poor bastards.

At least they were doing better. They stopped jumping at every shadow, stopped randomly screaming and twitching. Davren scanned the group, his breathing slow and steady. Then, someone laughed.

Sarah's eyes all at once glowed brilliant orange. She gasped and was hoisted into the air, clutching at her throat and frozen as if time had stopped. So did Tamusk, Prisleon, every one of the prisoners... except Jameson, the human man he'd freed first.

Everyone gasped in panic and backed away as Jameson laughed. His half-starved body filled out. His rags of clothing became ornate brown robes, and the whites of his eyes turned orange, his iris and pupil melting into a brown disk. He floated into the air, looking down at them.

Davren's heart froze.

"Did you really think," Jameson began. "That you were _hiding_ from us? That we somehow didn't know?"

No. No, no no no. He didn't want to be taken. He didn't want to be subjected to whatever the prisoners had been.

'Jameson' continued speaking, his words impossible to drown out and ignore. "I suppose I have to give you _some_ credit. I'd never have expected you to do something quite this daring." He rubbed his hands together. "Unpredictable. Unforeseeable. I love it! But hey! Just make an avatar, some retroactive memory alteration, and nobody's the wiser." He glowered. "You've some nerve trying to take my belongings from me, you know. Especially to try and find a way to... what? Defeat us? Not possible, unless you have a Titan army just lying around. But..." He shrugged. "I, Yogg-Saron, am in a good mood. You've really surprised me, and I can't wait to see what you'll cook up next. So I'll let you off with a warning." Davren's jaw dropped. Yogg-Saron. That human was an actual Old God taking mortal form. They'd drawn the attention of the Fiend of a Thousand Faces.

Then, with a clap of thunder, the other mortals dropped to the ground and Jameson was gone.

Dead silence.

Then, the Old God avatar returned with a shadow nova, looking... tired. "Changed my mind." His voice turned to ice, and brilliant green magic wrapped around his hands. "Goodbye."

Necrotic power surged forth and wrapped around Davren. He conjured a mana shield, but it shattered instantly. The energy wrapped around him and he gasped in pain. Then he was... he was...

He wasn't.

* * *

****

**Yogg-Saron**

 ****

It rubbed a crusher tentacle against its true head, growling lowly. Ugh. This was stupid. It should've kept them around. Just because it _could_ act on its every impulse didn't mean it _had_ to. Now their souls were destroyed, gone forever. They wouldn't be coming back.

Maybe it could make a few mortals to take their place. Throw them in a hole in the ground, give them false memories, have them do what they would. But then it would know what they'd do, wouldn't it? It'd be able to predict their decisions and conflicts and... it was seriously thinking about creating mortals just for them to be _free_ of it.

Stupid. All of it.

Yogg-Saron shook those thoughts off. Who cared? There were plenty of other things left to surprise it besides a few dust motes that thought their 'spirit' and 'indomitable will' would avail them. Puzzles by Tsa'Thannon. Sermons by the qiraji and mantid, watchgates to distant stars and planets, the list went on. For the time being, Yogg-Saron's tendrils began to wave around in the air, summoning vast arcane magic. After a moment, there was a phenomenal _CRACK_ as Yogg-Saron vanished from Azeroth and air began rushing in to fill the void it left behind.

The Lucid Dream reappeared in the Twisting Nether. Rivers of arcane and shadow, colored every color of the rainbow and several outside the visible spectrum, flowed around it. Magical currents coiled around Yogg-Saron's body, which it inhaled through its millions of mouths, tasting and drinking. There was no gravity, there was no heaviness to its body. Distant stars twinkled morosely.

It sighed through its true head. What was it even worried about? That less than sixty-five mortals were dead? It killed thousands of times that just getting out of its prison! They were expendable and useless. Even if every one of the Titan-born went extinct and they didn't create more, who cared? Before the Titans came along the Old Gods had created their own servants and slaves. The n'raqi and aqir were just the latest in a long, long line of minions who were created and, when they grew boring, wiped out. They'd also created lesser servants, who multiplied rapidly and were susceptible to different tortures in different ways, many times.

Yogg-Saron didn't need the orcs and trolls, the elves and dwarves, the draenei and humans. It had half a mind to return to Azeroth and wipe them out to the last at this very second. Tsa'Thannon wouldn't mind. Unpredictable change was what they were all about! It could prove it was just as much an Old God as it had ever been, that a reincarnation cycle hadn't dulled its edge.

No, no that was all wrong. It had nothing to prove. The whole point of their rule was to have nothing to prove, to do what _they wanted_ and be beholden to no standards.

Yogg-Saron curled its tendrils around itself, drifting in the nether. It'd return to Azeroth in a while, keeping tabs on the planet with its magic. For the time being it needed to be separate physically.

This was ridiculous! It had everything it wanted! Why was it acting so childish? Everything was fine, it had a good 'friend' that actually understood it, legions of souls, great food, great fun and...

... it distracted itself by stargazing, forcibly ending the line of thought.

It could worry about this later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment for the unending madness of the Ancient Ones.


	37. Chapter 36: Is it What You'd Dreamed?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. **Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon do.**

****

**Yogg-Saron**

 ****

Something was wrong.

Yogg-Saron, now again in its throne, raised two of its main tendrils out of the atmosphere, feeling the tingling of the Great Dark Beyond trying to depressurize its limb. After a moment, it lowered its tentacles back to the ground.

Something was wrong. It wasn't enjoying this as much as it should've. There was no way it could run from this. Ruling Azeroth just wasn't all it was cracked up to be, even with the ongoing mock war with Tsa'Thannon.

But that was ridiculous! Objectively, everything was so, so much better than when it'd been a mortal! It had no need for money, it had infinite power, food, drink, shelter, and safety! It had a friend that wouldn't judge it for what it did, and would in fact _offer tips!_ It could torture mortals endlessly. How had it ever survived without that?! Animals subjected to agony just tried escaping but mortals, mortals _begged!_ Wild, unpredictable change ran free, and it was never able to predict what would come next.

No, that was a lie. It knew exactly what the problem was. It _could_ predict what was going on. It was already seeing the patterns. Storms here and there, mountains turning to volcanoes, so on and so forth. The unexpected was becoming the opposite of that. Obviously it couldn't surprise _itself,_ and having just Tsa'Thannon around...

... it just wasn't enough.

Growling through its million of mouths, Yogg-Saron summoned the Sara avatar and sent it flying.

She sailed through the air, then landed on solid water and _jumped._ Air screamed past her face, clouds burst around her, and soon the ruddy atmosphere gave way to blackness, to thousands of stars it had long-since memorized. It would take centuries for the stars to shift into new alignments. She approached the Blue Child rapidly and flipped over, landing on her knees.

Gravity reoriented itself, and she started pacing on the surface of the natural satellite. She'd deliberately left no crater and threw no dust into the air. It was perfectly, utterly silent, so she started pacing with her hands behind her back. She could say what she wanted about human bodies, but one of the few advantages they definitely held was being able to pace.

"Damn it!" she shouted, but there was no noise without any air. "What is _wrong_ with me?" she asked the vacuum, even though she already knew. She was growing bored of this. Already! It hadn't even been a _year!_ How could she possibly stand this for another ten years? Ten thousand? Million? Billion? And the worst thing was that she loved it, too! She was finally free, unrestrained! Nobody told her what to do, nobody kept her caged. No more laws. No more biting her tongue. No more withering under disappointing looks. But oh how she hated this, because she'd... she'd...

No. She wasn't going to put a name to it. Instead she reached her magic from her true body - still on Azeroth - into an n'raqi compound and found a slave. Orc woman, sure. As good as any other. She teleported to the far side of the Blue Child - the sun shone above, drowning out every one of the stars - and summoned air to her, then kept it from flying off. Sara's ears popped as the pressure returned. She also set up some radiation shields and dropped the temperature of the stone. With all that done she _pulled,_ and the orc appeared before her.

Sara, not even bothering with superficial hand motions, switched the orc's tattered rags with a dark purple gown and filled out her starved body.

The orc collapsed - in slow motion thanks to the low gravity - and lay on the bluish stone, trembling weakly. "Alright," Sara said. "Get up, I didn't bring you here so you could huddle." She shrieked and curled up tighter. Sara rolled her eyes, hovering lower. "Oh by the void, now's not the time." She held out a hand and twisted it. A shudder ran through the orc and her sobbing ended. She uncurled and looked up at Sara. Then she looked around at the crater they were in and gasped.

"What - how are - where - you saved me!" she breathed.

"Oh I doubt it," Sara growled, letting her eldritch aura flow forth for a moment. "I just felt like bringing someone here. Now get up!" she snapped.

The orc jerked up, staring up at her. "You're... you're one of them, aren't you? W-What are you going to do to me?" she asked, bringing her hands to her neck and taking a step back.

"I... I don't know." She landed on the stone, only to uproot a stone seat and float up. Another seat appeared under the orc. She screamed but held on to its legs as it brought her higher up. A chiseled table, with tentacles for legs, hovered between them. "I just wanted a change of pace, I suppose. Chaos, unpredictable and continuous change, you know? Here, enjoy while my mood lasts." She conjured up a spread of food and drink for the orc. Biscuits, chicken legs, wine, hot chocolate, everything she could think of.

While Sara fixed herself a cup of hot bone marrow and a plate of basilisk eyes, the orc - Riekna - stared at the banquet uncertainly. "This is a trick," she said. "Isn't it?"

"Not at the moment. Honestly, what've you got to lose?" After taking a moment to consider her words, Riekna dug in, eating like a woman who hadn't had a proper meal in... well, months, chowing down as if she wasn't aware of the Old God sitting patiently across from her.

"So, I have a question for you," Sara said once she was done eating her own food. Riekna looked up from a plate of beef, sauce covering her face, and grunted. "More like a scenario to be exact. So here's how it goes. You and your kind, you have certain values, do you not?" She conjured up several images above the floating table to go along with what she said. "You like making people happy. You enjoy having challenges so long as there is nothing too high at stake, and sometimes even then based on the individual. Generally though, people like taking the easy way out for things that matter. A stable source of food and such. Housing, love, stability." She rolled her eyes. "Of course not _all_ of your people, but your brains and souls are so similar to each others' that generally you can agree on what's good and what's bad, right?"

Riekna nodded weakly, pulling her robes tighter. "R-Right, um, ma'am?"

"Ma'am will do. Obviously, _we_ don't share your standards. Your rules are not our rules, your morals are not our morals." She chuckled menacingly and replaced the images with new ones. "Rape, murder, _torture_. You all consider those pretty much the main evils. We don't. Stagnation, predictability, being ruled over, _those_ are our hatreds. Call our sadism a product of our origin if you want. Ever since we've taken over, everything is in turmoil and I love it!" She turned her chair into a recliner and laid back.

"What does this have to do with - "

She closed the orc's mouth with a thread of shadow. "I died, you know. To the Kingslayers. I ejected my soul as a last ditch effort and reincarnated as a human baby. No memories. No idea what I truly was, what my true place in this world was. Not for nearly twenty-five years." She sighed in contentment, staring up at the black sky. "I've made it, though. I'm back. I don't follow any laws but my own. I get to torture whoever I want as creatively and thoroughly as I want. But..." She sat back up and changed her stone seat to cushions. "I had a trade off."

"Forgive me if I don't feel sympathetic with a _torturer!_ " Riekna said, grinding her teeth.

A flash of light in Sara's eyes made her shut up. "You will listen," she intoned darkly.

"Yes ma'am," the orc squeaked.

Right. Fear. Fear of her. That was _right._ She shivered in delight. "There we go. Now, there's two of us on Azeroth. There used to be five, all acting on our impulses whenever we wanted, no fear of reprisal, or judgement. No consequences. I remember those days... so fondly." She sighed wistfully, tracing dodecahedrons on her seat.

"But now there's just two. Tsa'Thannon and I. And it's wonderful, don't get me wrong! It pushes me so much, challenges me so hard. But it's just not the same. And it's becoming... predictable. As a human my life wasn't this predictable. I was, was at the whim of countless millions of forces beyond my control, interacting and intermingling with each other, crashing together into a jumbled mess I couldn't make heads or tails of even today! But I hated it. I always had to listen to my 'superiors', do as I was told, work for the basic necessities of life, play nice and smile around you idiots."

She psychically lifted a distant stone and clenched her fist, grinding it to dust. "Hmm, well who's laughing now?" she muttered. She leaned forward onto the table, one hand holding her cheek. "I don't have to listen to anyone now. I get to torture whoever I want - "

"That's despicable!" Riekna shouted, finding her nerve again. "You can't just do that to people!"

"Says who? The people I'm torturing?" she countered. "Sit down and shut up before I decide to give you a different kind of personal attention," she snarled, building some stone tentacles from the moonscape around them to emphasize her point. _That_ threat was enough to shut up this uppity mortal who, honestly, was starting to be more trouble than she was worth. "As I was saying, I get all these things, but now I've given up all true randomness in my life. I don't know what to do," she moaned, resting her head on the table.

"It seems pretty obvious to me," Riekna said warily. "You should just retire. P-Put Azeroth back the way it was and - "

"Maybe this was a mistake," she mused, preparing to teleport Riekna back for another round of mind-breaking torment. "I shouldn't have done this."

"No, wait!" the orc shouted. "You brought me here to talk right? So let's talk!" she insisted with haggard black hair and wide, desperate brown eyes. Close to hyperventilating. "As a human you had chaos but no freedom, but now you have freedom and no chaos, right? Y-You could ease up your rule. Let us just rebuild whatever we want, and we can surprise you! We did before, right? You don't even have to give anything up! Just, like, dedicate half the planet to us!"

Sara stared at Riekna for a few moments. "That... is the dumbest idea I've ever heard," she lied. "Goodbye," she said, ripping out her soul and tearing it to shreds before launching the body into the sun.

She held up a hand and changed it into a mock face. " _Oh, just give us back the planet,_ " she mocked. " _Just go and tell Tsa'Thannon that hey, this entire half of our world is now being dedicated to the mortals, and we each only get a quarter. This will surely help you!_ Give me a break." What had she expected from a mortal? It telling her to keep Azeroth and keep torturing their kind? This was just a waste of time. She turned her constructions back to rubble and let go of the habitability enchantments. With that done, she sunk through the Blue Child to the Azeroth-facing side and took off for _her_ planet. Its ruby form hung like a marble in the sky, capped on either end with the colossal forms of herself and Tsa'Thannon, turquoise-brown and pale gray.

Stupid. This was all stupid. What was she even asking mortals for? Of course they'd give the same answer. For that matter, her own minions would all also give the same answer as each other. What was she going to do? There _was_ no neutral observer here.

Azeroth grew larger and larger in her vision, and she careened towards her body. Her bristling tendrils came into focus, and then she was _inside_ her own body, sensing every atom around her at the same time.

She found what she was looking for in a moment. She grabbed Fardol Brighthammer's body and sent both it and her avatar to another pocket dimension. She shaped it into the Cathedral of Light, just for him. After repairing the damage his body had suffered and dragging back his soul, Fardol was brought back to life. She even gave him his paladin armor.

"Gah! Hwa! Huh?" he sputtered, leaping to his feet and looking around wildly. "The Cathedral?" he asked out loud. Then he turned around and saw her floating, staring at him with her glowing eyes, and he readied his fists. "You!"

"Fardol, you and I both know exactly how effective punching me is going to be." She raised a hand and made a hard motion to the ground, and he was forced to sit. She pulled a seat over for herself and sank into it, massaging her head. "Damn it. Look, you're a paladin, right? Protect the innocent, praise the Light, all that. I need advice."

The dwarf stared at her blankly. "I think it's a little too late for that, lass."

"Just hear me out. I... the plan was..." She growled. "I messed up, alright? I changed back into Yogg-Saron _mostly_ so I could stomp the demons. And I made an effort not to unmake Azeroth. Really, I did! But _obviously_ nobody gave me a chance and when I got to thinking about it, why should I hold back when it'd feel _so_ good? And I... may have freed the other Old God and now we're ruling Azeroth together and I _hate it!_ "

"So you're having a crisis of conscience?" he asked hopefully.

"No, I'm not, and that's the thing!" she moaned. "It's everything I could ever want and more. But I... look. When I was still human, I couldn't rule, my life could be imperiled, but I could be _surprised._ Now that I'm an Old God again I can rule, I'll never be in danger again, but I'm seriously running out of surprises. You can only look at erupting volcanoes so many times before they all start looking the same."

"Wait, did you just say you woke up _another_ \- " Fardol shook his head. "Nevermind that! So what you're getting at is, you hate that the world's predictable, but you don't want to give up ruling it. Well Sara, I hate to break it to ya, but ya can't have your cake and eat it too."

"The hell I can't!" she contended, hovering out of her chair.

"Well do you have any ideas then?" She frowned and floated back down. "Right. You want my honest advice, not to just tell you what you want to hear? Here's how you fix it. You've already got your power. Just let go of Azeroth, _fix_ it damn it, and... I don't know. Go float in the Nether or something, you can make an avatar and live through it here. There. You get all the chaos of living as a mortal, with none of the risk!"

"Do you think I haven't thought of that?" she muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "But to do that, I'd have to get Tsa'Thannon to agree to it."

"Tsa'Thannon?" he asked, stroking his beard in confusion.

Sara waved it off. "The other Old God. It's not exactly, you know, my boss. But we're both ruling Azeroth together, and it's not like we've divided it up into perfect hemispheres. Think I'll be able to just go up to it and say _'Hey, I'm kind of tired of this whole endless maddening torture thing, let's leave them alone for a bit'_? How do you think THAT will sound?"

Fardol frowned. "Sara, listen. If you are having these doubts, there is a decent chance Tsa'Thannon is too. Try talking with it. Or at least a roundabout way."

She shook her head. "No, no. If I do this, then I can't trust anyone else to have this kind of power and not mess it up. It'd have to be ONLY me and for that I'd have to _kill_ it," she said, breath hitching. "Nevermind how I'm probably not strong enough to do that, I can't do that to it! I like Tsa'Thannon. It's the only one who understands me. It's the only one who's at all like me. If I kill it, I'll be alone," she whispered, staring vacantly into the cathedral around her.

He sighed. "I'm sorry that's the case."

"No you're not."

"No I'm not," he agreed. "Listen, I get you brought me back. And I'm glad I wasn't around for... whatever you've been doin' to my home. But I can guess as to what's going on and I'm not going to pretend, even for a second, that I want you to keep doing it. But I'm laying my cards on the table here. You want to be in charge, and to be surprised. You can have one or the other, Sara! Keep squatting on Azeroth and you'll get one, clean up your damn mess and you get the other. You just have to ask yourself which you want more."

There it was. There was the awful truth Sara had been dodging. She bowed her head and sighed, turning over her emotions boiling across her colossal consciousness. "We've already lost so much," she muttered. "We didn't come into being with our powers. We had to fight tooth and nail for thousands of years, through blood, sweat, and tears, to get where we are now. We were content just sitting on Azeroth. We weren't spreading to other worlds." Yet. "We weren't sending the aqir off as an interstellar civilization."

She looked up at him with some nauseating cross between hatred and sorrow. " _Your_ people and your _creators_ already took so, so much from me. C'Thun, Y'Shaarj, N'Zoth. My friends..." she said, her voice cracking. "All because _every_ planet needs to be ordered, _every_ planet needs to follow Titan law, there can be no compromise, no quarantine, no exception. And now, you want me to kill Tsa'Thannon. To betray it, rip it apart and wipe its soul from reality as though it never existed." She laughed bitterly. "I can't do that," she said weakly.

He shrugged. "I've said my piece, Sara. You're so eager to do whatever you want? Then make your choice. Now, do me a favor. Just let me go back to the Light." The dwarf closed his eyes and suddenly looked ten times his age. "It was so warm," he whispered. "So bright. For so long..."

Sara frowned. "Fine. You did the best you could." Black lightning crackled around Fardol's body, atomizing it and releasing his soul. Sara collapsed the pocket dimension and scattered his ashes into Azeroth's clouds.

Then she shattered her own avatar.

* * *

It hardly seemed like it'd been in power for a year, but there it was.

Of course, Fardol's... what? Words? Advice? Ultimatum? Whatever it was, Yogg-Saron wasn't able to forget it. Which wasn't to say it didn't try. It found ways to occupy its time. It experimented somewhat with consciousness expanding on tauren to create new tortures. It had Therazane switch a large portion of the planet's mantle and crust with each other. It played a simulation game by Tsa'Thannon, where it could only move on either the X, Y, or Z axis at any time in a complex, non-Euclidean maze and had to reach the end. _That_ one was quite a challenge; it took it a month even with its full attention devoted to it. It was riveting, 'dying' in that over and over. Slinging spells and tentacles at Tsa'Thannon, warring with vast armies on a shifting landscape. It was amusing.

For a while.

Yogg-Saron could only imagine what it would be able to do if Azeroth were still as it were before. It could be a trogg, tunneling through the land. It could be a night elven architect, or a goblin merchant, a san'layn defector, and that was just scratching the surface. Oh, it _salivated_ at the thought. All it had to do was give up everything it had achieved, everything it had ever wanted since it was a little girl, kill the only one who _understood_ it, and render itself an endling.

It wasn't worth it. There had to be another way. Yogg-Saron would talk to Tsa'Thannon, figure out what it thought of their new world.

It crawled from its throne, sinking tendrils to the bottom of the ocean with phenomenal splashes, scraping along the mountains and islands without a care. Its magical aura continued to take in the information of its surroundings, granting it sight without eyes. Every rock, every creature, every atom was revealed to it at the same time. The sheer quantity of information was... staggering. Yogg-Saron took a moment to appreciate how keen its senses had become since ascending, but then continued onward.

Once it had reached the equator, it extended its telepathy towards Tsa'Thannon. _'Greetings,'_ it said. _'I finally finished the project, it's all set whenever you want to take a look at it.'_ Yogg-Saron raised one of the city-sized tentacles closer to its friend and formed a sphere of interlocking indigo rings, some smaller than others, twisting and turning in the air.

 _'Wonderful!'_ the other deity exclaimed. Yogg-Saron's orb, a condensed magical puzzle, floated over to Tsa'Thannon. It was proud of what it had concocted. It was a battle, with Tsa'Thannon's avatar within being at an enormous disadvantage to a vicious alien creature. There were mazes, smaller fights, a shifting environment in seven spatial dimensions... it'd outdone itself. _'I'll get started right away,'_ it said. Yogg-Saron sensed, rather than saw, it place part of its consciousness into the puzzle. _'Whoa, I died already. This is going to be good.'_

 _'It's the least I could do. Without the others around, sometimes I feel as if everything is so... quiet these_ _days,'_ it said, hoping to glean something.

Tsa'Thannon's mouth, underneath its body, sighed. _'I know what you mean. I miss them too,'_ it said, deep and patient voice dropping. _'And their touch is lacking, but it's not so bad! I'm here, you're here with me, that's all I really need... damn it, up to fifty deaths already.'_

Yogg-Saron nodded its main head atop its long neck. _'Right. That's all we really need,'_ it thought back to the other Old God. That was right though, wasn't it? Even if it missed the others, it should just be happy with what it had. It should enjoy Tsa'Thannon's company...

That was a lie. It couldn't be happy with this. Domination was a wonderful way to blow off steam, but it just wasn't enough for it anymore. Not in a world without the others. Not in a world where it'd experienced life as a mortal. Perhaps Tsa'Thannon had the same concerns it did, but didn't give voice to them. Yogg-Saron doubted it. There was no path it could take that would allow it _true_ happiness, no ideal scenario. But still, it only had one course of action before it.

It would have to release Azeroth.

It would have to kill Tsa'Thannon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment for the inviolable cruelty of the Great Ones.


	38. Chapter 37: Darkness and Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. **Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon do.**

****

** Yogg-Saron **

**  
  
**

First off, it wrenched the Aspects off their impaling spires and into a pocket dimension, healing their wounds as it did. It'd give them a few moments to themselves, and only then would it appear. Of course, it spied on them in the meantime.

The four Aspects collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily. Ysera screamed and curled up, wrapping her wings around herself like a cocoon. After a moment of struggling, Alexstrasza pushed herself up onto her legs and crawled over to Ysera, holding her younger sister and whispering soothing words to her. Kalecgos struggled to stand in the infinite black void they'd been dumped in, aided by Nozdormu.

How touching.

Yogg-Saron teleported the Sara avatar into the darkness, levitating far above the dragons' horn level with her arms crossed. "If you've had enough of your pity party," she began, startling all four Aspects. "I'd like to get started."

"You," Alexstrasza hissed, hiding Ysera under her wing. "What do you want from us?" Her voice choked up. "Haven't you already taken enough? Haven't you - "

"Be quiet," she said calmly, and the former queen shut up. "I'm here to make you four an offer. You see, I am going to kill the other Old God on Azeroth. Then, I'm going to sink into a lower plane of reality and leave Azeroth to its own devices. I'll find my own entertainment," she explained, leaving out the part where she'd continue to roam Azeroth in disguise. "The problem, however, is that Tsa'Thannon is more powerful than I am. So, I need help," Sara summarized, gesturing to the four dragons. "As you four are now, you'd die in an instant. However, I can make you stronger. About, say, Titan-strong. The four of you together, fighting at Tsa'Thannon's most vulnerable point, might be able to distract it for a few critical moments."

"What?" Kalecgos breathed. "What game are you playing?"

Sara shrugged. "I just told you. Normally I'd be all for playing the 'convince the dragons the Old God wants to help them' game, but I'm not in the mood. I've got a lot to do," she said, materializing a wristwatch and pointing at it. Purple light engulfed the four dragons, rewriting their current beliefs and shackling them to her will. "First up, Kalecgos."

Warping over to him, she laid a hand on his forehead. He roared in agony, but she kept him in place as she filled the Aspect with all the power she could muster. With the Heart of Magic still inside, she could do a lot. It became corrupted, spreading its taint through the blue wyrm's body. Brilliant blue scales turned dull. The icicle-esque spikes on his legs turned black as night, and his horns grew to twice their relative length. His fangs sharpened. His magic grew. His entire body expanded to thrice its size, everything else growing with him. The essence of the arcane and magic within Kalecgos turned towards the darker half of the coin, the half where magic corrupted wielders, aged them with rampant use, and crippled limbs from over channeling. Soon Sara floated away and Kalecgos, Aspect of Corruption, was ready to serve.

Ysera was next. Sara summoned a forest of purple tentacles from beneath Alexstrasza to pin her to the ground and wrap around her snout to shut her up, and got to work on the queen's sister. She shivered as Sara approached but steeled herself when Sara placed her palm on the dragon's head and began. The webbing of her wings turned blood red, as did her eyes, horns, and various spikes. Like Kalecgos she began to grow, her verdant scales turning the color of long-dead ashes. The Heart of Dreams within her pulsed, then was overtaken. Ysera, Aspect of Nightmares, was finished.

"And then there were two," she said, floating over to the hyperventilating Alexstrasza. She was less gentle about this one. Alexstasza's gleaming ruby scales turned putrid green and her glorious horns curled in on themselves and became black. She gasped and panted within her tentacle prison; then she started to grow and Sara dismissed her restraints. Soon enough the Aspect of Life was gone, replaced by the Aspect of Pestilence.

"Nozdormu," she said, floating over to the last uncorrupted Aspect, who stared at her unblinkingly. She quickly read his mind and placed her hands on her hips. "You and I both know how this battle's going to go, don't you? At least in regards to you." She shrugged helplessly. "Oh well. Predestination is as predestination will be. Try not to abandon us at an inopportune moment, will you?" she asked. This time Sara didn't even bother floating over to him, instead corrupting him from where she was. Nozdormu slammed his jaws shut and breathed heavily through his nostrils. His sandy body turned dark gray. Horns turned electric white. Arcane cracks spread across his body, oozing with mystic lightning as shimmering smoke began to follow his every movement. Murozond, Aspect of the Infinite, was now a reality.

"I'll keep you here for the time being," she explained. "In the fight I'll teleport you near Tsa'Thannon's brain, where you can hurt him if you work at it hard enough. He'll probably kill you, so I'll resurrect you in that case. Except if he destroys your souls. No coming back from that one, not even with me around. If by some miracle you survive the fight _and_ we kill Tsa'Thannon, then when I put Azeroth back together I'll restore you and grant you back your old positions." She eyed Murozond. "Except you, Infinite. We _both_ know how your story's going to end. Stay in this void for the time being," she said, snapping in some large prey animals and vats of drinking water. "I'll give you some warning so you can get ready. Prepare yourselves," she said, shattering her avatar and leaving the four obedient, corrupted Aspects safely tucked away.

Alright. That was the original Aspects down. Revalion was already as powerful as he could be, and shackling him to Yogg-Saron's will would take but an instant. General Vezax, obviously, would serve without question. That just left the Elemental Lords.

As much as Yogg-Saron would've liked to grab every dragon, mantid, qiraji, and faceless on the planet and throw them at Tsa'Thannon as fodder, that wouldn't work. Tsa'Thannon knew a great many spells, one of them a very special area of effect spell. It would blast all of the Old God's enemies with dark magic, growing stronger the more people it hit. Just bringing in eleven people - Yogg-Saron, the four original Aspects, Revalion, the four Elemental Lords, and Vezax - was pushing it. Any more and the spell would simply be too powerful. So it had to settle for the strongest ones out there.

Luckily, the Elemental Lords were already magically subdued, just in case they got any funny ideas in their heads. It would modify them - and Revalion - to only obey Yogg-Saron later, lest Tsa'Thannon grow suspicious. It could pass off the Aspects vanishing as it finally growing tired of them and disposing of the dragons. Now, it was time to lay a trap.

Sara reappeared in the Twisting Nether, far away from Azeroth's coordinates. The few demons floating around _instantly_ teleported to safety. No matter. From her fingers, thick lines of void energy flew out, latching onto invisible parts of the Nether's fabric. Sara wove and wove, applying every trick and deception she could think of to make this trap as absolutely devastating as she possibly could. Shadow searing, soul tears, mana draining, spell cooldown increasing, and so many more. She poured more and more magic into it, so much that even her body back on Azeroth had to evocate to compensate.

 _'Making something big?'_ Tsa'Thannon asked it.

Guilt stabbed at its many hearts. _'It's a surprise,'_ it explained casually. _'You'll love it.'_

 _'I'll be waiting then!'_ Tsa'Thannon said, before returning to mixing and matching mortals' body parts. And that was the end of that.

More and more ropes of magic filled the Twisting Nether, forming a tangled web with the Sara avatar at the center. Once it was done, Yogg-Saron carefully extracted its avatar from the Nether and dismissed it. The time had come. This was actually happening.

Something... settled in its stomachs. Something heavy. Regret. Worry. _Fear._ If Tsa'Thannon killed it, there was no guarantee it'd be able to revive itself before the other deity destroyed its soul. It had to bring it into the Nether. There rested Yogg-Saron's trap. It could easily ensnare the minds of the elemental lords - while its combat magic was superior, Yogg-Saron was still Tsa'Thannon's better in mind magic - and bring them as well. There it could unleash its full power, strength that could hold closing portals open with ease, without fear of destroying Azeroth. There, it could _truly_ battle its friend.

It crawled across the world, towards Tsa'Thannon. _'I miss them,'_ Yogg-Saron said abruptly. _'It's just not the same without them. I can't stand it.'_

 _'What brings this on?'_ Tsa'Thannon asked.

Yogg-Saron reached Tsa'Thannon and, after a moment of hesitation, started firing magical attacks from its tentacle at Tsa'Thannon. It was just 'sparring', after all.

The other deity, of course, retaliated. Its lesser tendrils wrapped around Yogg-Saron's and dark missiles began to fly back and forth. As they started fighting, Yogg-Saron continued to speak. _'I spent some time as a mortal, you know. I... I hate it with just the two of us. I thought, when I turned back, it'd be just as good when it was with five, but... I think I preferred living as a mortal to living like this,'_ it said quietly. And it knew Tsa’Thannon missed the other gods too… but the other deity didn’t appear to have any problems with it being just the two of them. This was the only way.

Tsa'Thannon's face, hidden underneath its starfish body, blinked its many yellow eyes. _'Yogg, are you alright?'_

It sighed through its millions of mouths, sending gale winds across Azeroth. _'No.'_

Then it began.

Throughout Azeroth, a massive surge of wind gripped the land as air rushed in to fill the void where two Old Gods had been moments before. The Aspects, the elemental lords, and General Vezax, also all vanished, shackled to Yogg-Saron's will.

They reappeared within the dark skies of the Twisting Nether, oriented so that the two deities were underbelly to underbelly. Tsa'Thannon's pearl-like head, with its hundreds of eyes and ring of teeth, was vulnerable. However, its top was covered in enormous, poisoned spines. Meanwhile Yogg-Saron's vulnerable heads were atop its body, but its heaviest armor was beneath. By orienting themselves like this, Tsa'Thannon's weakest point was open while Yogg-Saron's was secured. Its minions also appeared around Tsa'Thannon's head, and they instantly went to work on clawing, blasting and burning. Then, the trap it had laid in the Nether flared to life.

A spider-web of void energy illuminated itself around Tsa'Thannon, and collapsed in on it. Every spell Yogg-Saron could include burst all at once. Portals to the void opened and pelted the Old God with ruinous energy. Its mana was burned, its body was plagued and its spells crippled, all while avoiding Yogg-Saron's minions. Then Yogg-Saron itself attacked.

Its long limbs wrapped around Tsa'Thannon's gray starfish arms and constricted with star-shattering force. The smaller tentacles on Yogg-Saron's body whipped themselves at Tsa'Thannon over and over, puncturing the flesh and carving around the armored plates. The clubs of its crusher tentacles hemorrhaged a sickly green mist, which Tsa'Thannon inhaled before it realized what was even happening. From Yogg-Saron's more magic-oriented tentacles, a complete onslaught burst forth.

Purple lightning blasted into Tsa'Thannon, and bounced around its body for miles. Calamitous doom and wracking plague filled its body and debilitated it. Superpowered spells, far greater in power than what it used for sparring, crashed from every available appendage it had, screaming towards the smaller Old God and pelting its flesh while it was still taken off-guard. A million and change orbs of emerald light appeared all around its vulnerable side, and each one unleashed a thousand rays of death energy to carve across its body, its tentacles, its head. Yogg-Saron repeatedly unleashed its most powerful spell, the Extinguish All Life spell, all across Tsa'Thannon's body without any restraint, forming kingdom-sized bursts of purple smoke around and even inside it, lighting up the void.

Tsa'Thannon's shriek of shock and betrayal was piercing. The sheer volume instantly killed all the allies it had brought, forcing it to resummon the elementals and resurrect both Vezax and the dragons, all while sustaining its merciless onslaught. Tsa'Thannon's smaller tendrils were sluggish and its many yellow eyes rolled about in their sockets. Its entire body oozed with black blood from countless cuts and stab wounds, congealing into sentient oozes and vaporous animi that wondered about the Nether in confusion, moments before Yogg-Saron's shifting waves of magic cut down the blood spawns.

Then, Tsa'Thannon got a hold of itself. Suddenly Yogg-Saron's tendrils were clenching around nothingness as the smaller deity teleported to a moderate distance, wrapping itself in a spherical, purple barrier the size of a small planet. _'What are you doing?!'_ it asked frantically. Already, Yogg-Saron saw its vast magic working to repair the damage. Dispel the weakening effects, expel the diminishing gas, seal the bleeding wounds, mend its soul and regenerate its lost blood.

Yogg-Saron didn't let up. If it gave Tsa'Thannon even an _instant_ to gather its bearings, it would be on the receiving end of a whole world of hurt. It reached its magic towards Tsa'Thannon, inspecting its shadowy barrier and crawling its magic inside, dispelling it after a moment. It knew it could do better than that. Tsa'Thannon wasn't taking this seriously. Yet.

Suddenly, Tsa'Thannon's shadow mends turned corrupted and each heal began to scar it more instead. It roared and teleported behind Yogg-Saron with a new shield. _'Stop this! What are you DOING?!'_ it pleaded. This time, Yogg-Saron wrapped itself and its minions in magic and warped over to Tsa'Thannon, shattering its barrier and renewing the onslaught. This time, however, waves of telekinetic magic kept its grasping tendrils away and brief purple walls appeared around most of Yogg-Saron's attacks. Half of the projectiles that got through were intercepted by shadow bolts, detonating harmlessly in the middle of the nether. A _crack_ of void energy killed Yogg-Saron's minions a second time, instantly. It brought them back and continued, snarling.

 _'I don't know what's gotten into you. Stop it, I'm warning you!'_ Tsa'Thannon warned, its normally calm and collected voice frantic. Yogg-Saron didn't let up, working around the other Old God's defenses to continue the onslaught, trying to outpace the healing. The god's voice turned furious. _'Fine then. You asked for it!'_

With a twisting motion, Tsa'Thannon escaped from Yogg-Saron and went to a safe distance. Its five main arms extended and bent back, a single orb of enormous darkness on each, and then with a feat of incredible flexibility Tsa'Thannon brought all five arms together to a single point, obscuring its head. In the process, the magical spheres came together and an _enormous_ ray of shadow magic blasted straight at Yogg-Saron.

It remembered what pain was like.

Its minions were safely out of the way, but Yogg-Saron had no time to move or to raise any defenses. The colossal attack blasted right into the center of its underbelly. It wasn't just a massive release of raw power, either. It was a masterpiece of interlocking shadow magic that unfurled around the impact. Shadow bolts, curses of agony and weakness and so many other types, shadow orbs with a cutter beam between them, shadow novas, seeds of corruption, and so many more spells of Tsa'Thannon's own creation spilled onto its body by the thousands.

Yogg-Saron was _pushed_ backwards in the Nether by the force of the impact. In a moment the beam was gone, leaving a gaping hole through Yogg-Saron's middle that was already filling with its own weaponized blood. With a thought, it stopped the bloodflow and healed the wound, and teleported itself out of the way of Tsa'Thannon's follow-up beam. It appeared to the side of the Old God and wrapped two of its tendrils around one of its arm and tossed it away, spinning, and unleashed its barrage. Yogg-Saron teleported its minions back to Tsa'Thannon's head and urged them to renew their attack.

The battle began in earnest, now. Spells flew like hail between the two gods' bodies. They each ordered their projectiles to move around and intercept their opponent's, they counterspelled the other whenever they tried to unleash a more massive attack, and they dispelled any magical barriers. Like two ships at war their bodies were lit up with impacts as spell after spell tore into the other, and spell after spell undid the damage their foe inflicted, and spell after spell renewed the mana they lost...

Positioning was a key issue, to keep their most vulnerable spots away while revealing the other's. Yogg-Saron suddenly found Tsa'Thannon underneath it, rocketing upward and impaling it with its many poisoned spines. In response it drove its many, larger tendrils onto the deity and pushed it off, cleansing the necrotic poisons before they could do too much damage. At other times Tsa'Thannon was exposed, its pearl-like head forced to protect itself from millions of striking tendrils while being bitten and clawed by the dragons, roasted and crushed by Vezax and Copalypse, crushed and cut by Therazane, electrified and sliced by El'Jenidu and speared by Neptulon. Each time Tsa'Thannon struck at them, Yogg-Saron capitalized on its distraction and closed in a little more. Every time they died, it simply revived them.

At other times they were at stalemates, both showing the other their hardest points. Yogg-Saron would hesitate to get close for fear of the spines, and Tsa'Thannon would keep away from its stronger, larger tentacles. Their projectiles streaked through the Twisting Nether, leaving streams of black smoke and droplets of poison hovering in the emptiness.

Even their blood came to life. Millions of black oozes battled all across the Twisting Nether in a steadily-increasing halo. Colossal animi made of their blood struggled with each other, releasing pulses of profound darkness that cleared away the lesser blood constructs around them. The many living ichors formed a field of obstacles for each Old God, intercepting their attacks and forcing them to maneuver.

Tsa'Thannon's Boundless Despair spell, the one that had forced Yogg-Saron to limit how many minions it brought, was released as often as its own Extinguish All Life spell. Purple chains formed repeatedly between its minions and Yogg-Saron's true head, unleashing a whole slew of various awful effects before Yogg-Saron dispelled it. Luckily, the bloods didn't count as additional targets since they were, after all, a part of Yogg-Saron.

Out here, far beyond Azeroth and facing each other, both deities were free to utilize their _absolute_ full power. Not even when under attack by the Titans could they do that; the Titans were simply too small to concentrate all their power on. But Yogg-Saron's foe was a fellow Old God. It was an _enormous_ target. Unfortunately, that went both ways.

The battle raged on. Yogg-Saron's terrible mental magic struck and scarred Tsa'Thannon's soul and sanity, forcing it to divert its own resources to not losing the will to fight back. Tsa'Thannon's unparalleled sorcery shook reality, riddling it with holes and explosions too numerous to count, wracking Yogg-Saron with agony. Barrier spells rippled and flowed across both of them, never able to form completely before being dispelled. At times Yogg-Saron got the upper tentacle. At times it was Tsa'Thannon. Minute by minute, hour by hour, the struggle continued, and neither of them showed any signs of weakening.

But that wasn't good enough. Yogg-Saron couldn't just hold it in a stalemate. It had to _win_ this fight. It had to think. What could it do to overcome Tsa'Thannon? This was like when it had fought Talgath the Inexorable as Sara. It had to look for the one thing it had that Tsa'Thannon was susceptible to and exploit it relentlessly. Yogg-Saron disengaged, teleporting through the Nether to a spot where it was still well in range to attack, but it would take some time for Tsa'Thannon to catch up. The vicious exchange of spells slowed down. Think, think.

Magical attacks. No good. Tsa'Thannon was weaving a patchwork of magic, countering half of everything Yogg-Saron threw at it and effortlessly healing the rest. It wasn't going to run out of mana any time soon, either.

Physical strength. Possible, but unlikely. Yogg-Saron was stronger, but Tsa'Thannon was also smaller so it could slip through its grip easily, if it didn't simply teleport away.

Corruption. That was what had killed Talgath, but Tsa'Thannon was a _whole_ different beast. Obviously, Old God corruption wouldn't work on an Old God.

The other strength Yogg-Saron had was its mental magic. Could that work? Tsa'Thannon's ability to manipulate minds was obviously superb. It was an Old God too. But Yogg-Saron had always had the edge. Its minions were firmly under its control no matter how Tsa'Thannon tried to hack their brains. And so far it had repaired any damage Yogg-Saron did to its mind... but what if it tried exclusively that? Could it outpace Tsa'Thannon's sanity reparations and drive an Old God to madness? It was worth a shot.

Yogg-Saron could sense vast arcane magic gathering around Tsa'Thannon as it gathered the magic to teleport over to it. Yogg-Saron readied itself...

With the light of a supernova, Tsa'Thannon appeared, with its poisonous spines aimed for Yogg-Saron's many snakelike heads. But Yogg-Saron was ready. Using its tendrils as leverage, it pushed against Tsa'Thannon, spinning around to let the spines _thunk_ against the armor plates along its underbelly. After warping its minions back to its enemy's head, Yogg-Saron gathered its magic and opened its maws...

"Hoohahahahahahaha, AAAAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahaha!"

The maddening spell burned into every yellow eye on Tsa'Thannon's upper body. Its magical sensors which could, like Yogg-Saron's, see every atom of a nearby item were forced to gaze at every single quark and electron of Yogg-Saron's being lighting up with the lunacy-inducing spell. Tsa'Thannon jerked away, but Yogg-Saron reaches its tendrils around and gripped tightly, pulling it closer and forcing it to watch.

 _'Grah!'_ Tsa'Thannon shouted, wrapping itself in arcane energy and teleporting to a safe distance. More spells came pouring from it, and Yogg-Saron saw it already repairing the mental lines that had been altered. It waved its five arms, shadow gathering around each, and fired another shadow beam right at Yogg-Saron. Like an octopus swimming in the ocean, it pumped its arms and swam away from the beam. It retaliated with its own storm of projectiles, tailored to its new strategy. No more curses. No more poisons and death rays. Psychosis rays blasted out at the speed of light, and mind maladies bounced between Tsa'Thannon's limbs before it dispelled it, all passing through the battling blood. _'Oh, I see!'_ it taunted. _'Well then - !'_ A shimmering, transparent sphere engulfed Tsa'Thannon.

Yogg-Saron knew what that was, and cursed. Spell reflection barrier. It forcibly dissipated every projectile still flying towards Tsa'Thannon and got to dispelling the reflection barrier.

Its magic worked at the seams, picking apart the command lines to find the way...

... Yogg-Saron didn't know how to dispel the reflection barrier. It was simply too well made. Given time it could decipher it and dispel it, but it didn't have time! It needed to get rid of it now!

Tsa'Thannon killed its minions with a crack of darkness, and before Yogg-Saron could bring them back the Twisting Nether around it suddenly changed. Yogg-Saron had teleported... _been_ teleported by Tsa'Thannon.

To right next to it. Tsa'Thannon's spines shot upward, skewering into hundreds of Yogg-Saron's heads and barely avoiding the real one's brain. It growled. That was fine. It just brought Tsa'Thannon close enough to use magic -

Then Yogg-Saron was elsewhere, staring up at Tsa'Thannon above it. Its gray starfish body glistened with void energy, and suddenly rectangular gateways appeared by the thousands around Yogg-Saron's body. Shimmering void energy shot out like bullets from a spider tank, battering Yogg-Saron back and forth. It could see voidwalkers, void wraiths, and even a void lord or two peeking through the gates to see the battle of two Old Gods. It reached its magic into the gates and slammed them shut, revived its minions and brought them next to Tsa'Thannon's leering, gibbering head. Tsa'Thannon lit up its tendrils, preparing another calamitous laser. Yogg-Saron moved out of the way, but suddenly -

\- suddenly it was teleported back into the path of the beam, the putrid power of which blasted a hole straight through it. Out of reflex, Yogg-Saron opened its many mouths and roared. Already, it was dispelling the anti-healing enchantments and repairing the damage -

\- only to suddenly be yanked through the Nether again, this time to appear off to the side of the other deity. Tsa'Thannon spun itself around, and razor-slices of telekinetic force flew off its tentacles one by one, aimed for Yogg-Saron and cutting deeply into its flesh. It swam down, avoiding the blasts and focused on Tsa'Thannon's barrier again.

Of course, the moment it was away from the slices Tsa'Thannon resumed its regular attacks, raining hell upon Yogg-Saron. With part of its vast awareness dedicated to avoiding the attacks and cleaning up the last of Tsa'Thannon's blood, Yogg-Saron concentrated on dispelling the spell reflection barrier. It was a masterpiece of magic, even as far as Old Gods went, with several anti-dispelling techniques in place. But with desperation and adrenaline on its side, Yogg-Saron found the loophole in its command structure and struck the shield with _just_ the right spell needed to dispel it. Now that it knew how, it would be able to dispel it again even if the spell was slightly modified.

Once the spherical shell faded away like mist it _grabbed_ Tsa'Thannon and pulled it close, activating the lunatic gaze aura and barraging it with thousands of varying madness spells. Enormous, cackling skulls, each the size of Elwynn Forest itself, appeared in the Twisting Nether to ensure that no matter where Tsa'Thannon went, it would continue to have its mind scarred.

Yogg-Saron sustained the mental barrage, and its minions the corporeal onslaught. Tsa'Thannon's magic and tendrils drew blood, but that blood only formed more soldiers for it to utilize as fodder.

But the battle continued to rage. Whenever Tsa'Thannon began to twitch its frothing mouths too much it teleported far away and used its tremendous magic to keep Yogg-Saron at bay long enough to repair the mental damage. Similarly, whenever Yogg-Saron was running low on mana to heal itself it warped to safety and evocated. It surrounded Tsa'Thannon with madness spells. It teleported Yogg-Saron into rapidly-shifting magical attacks. No matter how hard Yogg-Saron tried, though, it just couldn't get the lead for long enough to seal its victory. Fear began to grip its gut. This had been a mistake.

 _No,_ Yogg-Saron thought, raising a tendril to block one of Tsa'Thannon's. _No, I can do this! I just have to try harder!_

It got closer to Tsa'Thannon, looking closely at its mental lines for something vital. Something it could tug on _directly_ and cripple its fighting ability. But there were so many lines, its focus was so split, they kept _moving_ and shielding themselves from Yogg-Saron, and Tsa'Thannon's onslaught only seemed to be growing more and more intense as it got into the swing of battle. Now magical projectiles weren't just coming from the Old God. They were being conjured all around Yogg-Saron, mere yards from its skin, and pounding into it. That included the head that contained its _brain,_ and waves of nausea flooded Yogg-Saron as it was battered and bruised.

Well then. If Tsa'Thannon was going to start amping up, then Yogg-Saron had no choice but to do the same. It teleported away from Tsa'Thannon, appearing 'above' its spined body. It rained down magic to Tsa'Thannon, while secretly preparing another spell. The moment the other deity teleported it through the Nether, Yogg-Saron unleashed its own quietly prepared teleportation and instantly vanished - avoiding another shadow beam - and reappeared wrapped around Tsa'Thannon, grappling with the smaller Old God.

With a heave of effort it summoned thousands of lunatic skulls in a vast sphere around them, and with that done it simply focused on _nullifying_ its magic. The lesser attacks that kept pelting Yogg-Saron, and the moments Tsa'Thannon took to strike down the dragons, elementals, and single n'raqi, it dealt with. But the moment Tsa'Thannon tried to dispel a lunatic skull, or teleport either of them away, Yogg-Saron devoted everything it had to interrupting it, as well as to interrupting Tsa'Thannon's attempt to stop the interruption. It coiled its tendrils as tight as it could, holding Tsa'Thannon in the Old God equivalent of a stranglehold as its mind was scarred.

Tsa'Thannon _roared,_ blowing away the minions at its head and thrashing desperately. _'Let me go!'_ it shouted. In response, Yogg-Saron only tightened its hold - both physical and magical - and refused to let Tsa'Thannon go, tightening the ball of thrashing tentacles. Where it could, it blasted its mind directly and searched for a vital line. The smaller deity's struggles slowly but surely started to grow less coordinated, and it started panting through its many mouths. But then, Yogg-Saron noticed something.

As the Dragon Aspects wove in and out of the tentacle hurricane surrounding Tsa'Thannon's head, Murozond froze and began gathering golden light in his maw. Suddenly the light flashed around him, and Murozond was gone. The Aspect of the Infinite had abandoned it.

Uh oh.

 _'That's it!'_ Tsa'Thannon said, gathering its mana. Its telepathic voice sounded tired and frantic, and its many eyes had their pupils slit and looked back and forth rapidly. _'I don't know what this is. I don't know why you're trying to kill me. But I'm not having it!'_

Then, a colossal nova of _fire_ magic blossomed outward from Tsa'Thannon, instantly killing the remaining minions and forcing Yogg-Saron off. Like the shadow beam, it wasn't just a simple release of power. As the sheet of flame approached Yogg-Saron it condensed into fireballs, pyroblasts, dragon's breath spells, flame orbs, flamestrikes, fireblasts, searing pains, fiery rain, and so much more. It roared, summoning its shadowy barrier and healing the blackened burns all across its flesh. All of its sentient blood had been scoured from existence.

 _Oh,_ Yogg-Saron thought. _That's a new spell._

But no sooner had it done that and resurrected its minions than another burst of complex magic radiated out from Tsa'Thannon. This time it was not fire, but _frost_ energy that washed over Yogg-Saron, killing its servants - again - and chilling it to the core. Tsa'Thannon laughed, resuming its standard attacks even as its aura continued. _'What's wrong? You should know you'll never win if you don't include some VARIETY!'_

While the lunatic skulls were still doing their work, the next burst of energy caught Yogg-Saron off guard: it was nature magic, vibrant green and nauseating. Wrathful bolts, entrapping roots, and so much more pelted it. _'We were doing so well! We were friends, weren't we?'_ Tsa'Thannon asked, before folding its five main arms. _'Yes, friends, that's the word isn't it?'_ it muttered.

Another burst, and this time it was arcane. Explosions, blasts, barrages, missiles and more seared Yogg-Saron. But even worse, the two eldritch deities and its dead minions were yanked _out_ of the Twisting Nether by the burst of energy. Instantly, Yogg-Saron's body began to burn horribly. The weightlessness of the Nether was replaced with an incredibly powerful tug and more photons than even _it_ could count flooded its senses. The corpses of its minions burnt to vapor instantly. Cracks of violet energy on Tsa'Thannon's part destroyed their souls, preventing any resurrection. It was just the two of them now.

 _That's the Sun,_ it thought nervously. Before Tsa'Thannon could follow up on anything, Yogg-Saron teleported far away, but as it was slipping away from the colossal star it felt a _tug_ and it emerged into the physical plane still far too close to the Sun for its liking.

Tsa'Thannon warped next to it and resumed its onslaught. To Yogg-Saron's horror, the barrage now included small portals _into the Sun,_ from which pressurized, burning plasma shot at Yogg-Saron's limbs, forcing it to summon barriers to deflect the plasma. All its lunatic skulls were gone, back in the Nether -

\- another burst of power from Tsa'Thannon, this one made of various shadow spells. _It's wasting all the power that billows out into space,_ Yogg-Saron realized. _It's getting careless._ While neutralizing magical projectiles from all directions and slithering away from lances of plasma, it summoned another shell of lunatic skulls around them and swam through the void at Tsa'Thannon to grab a hold of it again, all while also retaliating with its own salvo of magic.

 _'I never did anything to you,'_ Tsa'Thannon babbled. _'It was going to be us ruling, just like we did long ago, forever! It was going to be perfect! And you ruined it!'_ The aura released its sixth pulse of energy.

Yogg-Saron didn't roar.

It _screamed._

Golden energy careened through space, briefly adding its glow to that of the Sun. The energy wasn't... _exactly_ the Holy Light but _by the void it's a damn good approximation!_ Exorcisms and judgements, consecrated space, holy wrath and bolts, smites, holy fire and repentance and more engulfed Yogg-Saron's being. Every single one of its jaws locked up and every last one of its tentacles went rigid as the burning, _burning_ magic ripped across its being and scarred its soul.

No. No, it had to focus. It still had to win this battle! If it didn't, Tsa'Thannon would kill it. It might even find Leira's pocket dimension and then... no.

The battle bitterly waged on. Tsa'Thannon screamed and judged and rambled as Yogg-Saron continued its maddening work, slowly but surely wearing it down. But just as Tsa'Thannon could not repair its sanity fast enough, now Yogg-Saron could not outheal Tsa'Thannon's enormous magical output. It teleported Yogg-Saron back and forth forcefully into various attacks, too fast to possibly be able to dodge them, and it was all Yogg-Saron could do to counterspell being sent into the heart of the Sun. Lances of plasma, augmented with dark power, sliced at its limbs and even tore some of the smaller tentacles _off,_ forcing it to regenerate them. Tsa'Thannon's aura did not abate either, repeatedly sending out explosions of the various schools of magic. To make it worse, it always teleported _right next_ to Yogg-Saron to release a pulse, then back to a safer distance once done.

_'You're the one who freed me! You're the one who did everything right and saved me! And now you're trying to kill me all of a sudden? What did I do? WHAT DID I DO?!'_

But Yogg-Saron wasn't giving up either. Sheets of its shadowy barrier danced along its skin, too fast and unpredictable to dispel. The lunatic skulls remained everywhere, burning into Tsa'Thannon's vision despite the overpowering light of the nearby star. Whenever it could, it latched on to Tsa'Thannon and channeled the Lunatic Gaze spell directly, all while countering its more dangerous spells, healing itself from the literal hurricane of magical projectiles, and retaliating with more sanity-draining magic.

But everything hurt. Everything hurt so much. Yogg-Saron's body was blackened and burned, and one of its eight arms had gone completely numb. Plates of armor were cracked, and gas sacks were ruptured. Tsa'Thannon's magic was just as terrible as it remembered. It was just a race against time to see who would succumb first, and Yogg-Saron was determined to hold out.

Then Tsa'Thannon threw it into the Sun.

The magical force Tsa’Thannon summoned didn't even allow it to teleport out. All Yogg-Saron could do was watch the colossal orb of plasma grow larger and larger as its gravity helped drag it in. Its main head winced, but it conjured the most powerful cooling enchantment it could and plunged into the Sun.

It... wasn't that bad, surprisingly enough. Being made of gas the Sun didn't have a _perfectly_ defined surface, but Yogg-Saron was large enough that it resembled falling into the ocean. Except it was so diffuse. Light. Not at all like water. And while the heat was abundant and plentiful, with its cooling enchantments it didn't burn much more than lava. It pumped its seven remaining tentacles to stay 'afloat' beneath the Sun's surface and waited for Tsa'Thannon's magic to run out. Its aura continued to release pulses, which in turn sent ripples through the Sun's gaseous surface.

... the magic was gone! Yogg-Saron teleported out of the Sun and released its cooling spell. But the moment it was done teleporting, agonizing pain lanced through its body as Tsa'Thannon, who'd been waiting right where Yogg-Saron had arrived, ran it through with its spines. Yogg-Saron roared, grabbing Tsa'Thannon with its tentacles and throwing the other deity off just in time to mitigate a fiery pulse. Tsa'Thannon flipped about in the vacuum several times before suddenly stabilizing itself. Yogg-Saron saw the many eye tentacles staring in all directions, blinking and watering at the sight of the many lunatic skulls.

 _'We have everything,'_ it whispered, not even moving to attack. _'And you're... oh I see! You're willing to throw it all away so you can go play pretend as a mortal! Yogg-Saron would never do that, you're just some THING in my friend's body!'_ it desperately accused, renewing its magical assault. Projectiles pounded Yogg-Saron from all directions, forcing it to twist and turn in ways even an omnipotent invertebrate like itself had difficulty with. Whenever it could it struck at Tsa'Thannon directly, but the aura was pulsing faster and faster - which meant less time between the Holy blasts - and while Tsa'Thannon's attacks were getting stronger a lot of them were starting to _miss_ now, flying past Yogg-Saron and into the abyss.

Suddenly, Yogg-Saron was teleported near a loop of plasma. The Sun's gravity let up without it having to do anything, rendering it immobile. Already, eight portals surrounded it in all directions and, before it had even a chance to move, opened and released enormous streams of burning plasma onto Yogg-Saron. It roared and covered itself in empowering shadows, but then the burning ended as it was teleported -

\- right next to Tsa'Thannon, and a burst of frost magic erupted from it. Combined with the terrible heat Yogg-Saron had been subjected to moments before, quite a few of its armor plates - including the ones on its heads - shattered. Yogg-Saron started to heal it, but there were also its many cuts, bleeding black blood that instantly vaporized in the heat of the Sun. There were magical burns, holy scars, its head buzzed and its maws were still.

\- suddenly it was beneath Tsa'Thannon, who brought its five arms together and carved through Yogg-Saron with another shadow beam. Yogg-Saron swam away once the damage was done, coating itself in healing magic.

 _'I... I...'_ Tsa'Thannon stammered, spinning around in place to look at the lunatic skulls. It dispelled some of them, but Yogg-Saron simply replaced them. _'I don't want to be alone,'_ it moaned. _'Uldunol was so quiet and still. I had none of you to interact with. I don't want to lose you too. Just stop this!_ Please! _'_

Its hearts clenched in sympathy, but it didn't stop. Instead, Yogg-Saron took the opportunity to warp over onto Tsa'Thannon and once again wrap the smaller deity tightly in its tentacles. A surge of arcane magic nearly blew it right off, but it held on tightly. The aura. Yogg-Saron had to dispel the aura. It reached its magic into Tsa'Thannon as it bucked and heaved against Yogg-Saron, trying to teleport to safety among all manner of attacks. It found the aura easily and went to work on it. It wasn't as difficult to figure out as the reflection shield had been. Soon, Tsa'Thannon's pulsing aura was dismantled.

 _'No! No!'_ it screamed, renewing its assault. But Yogg-Saron held it tightly and continued to batter it with every madness inducing spell it had in its arsenal with as much power as it could possibly muster. Magic that could snap the wills of an entire species in an instant. Power that could shatter worlds in a minute. Tsa'Thannon's mental lines were ruined, tangled and knotted, but it was still fighting to repair the damage and struggling to bring Yogg-Saron down. Using magic was getting harder, but it was _not_ letting up. Yogg-Saron was about to break through, it _knew it!_ It just had to hold on a little longer...

 _'Stop it!'_ Tsa'Thannon shrieked, contorting about at incredible speeds, unable to so much as stab Yogg-Saron with its spines. _'Stop it, STOP IT!'_ Arcane light crackled all along Tsa'Thannon's tentacles. Around the two of them, portals opened up into the Sun. At first there were four, but then there were eight, then twelve. They formed four 'lines' that traced paths along an invisible sphere around the two of them, and then they unleashed their plasma.

Yogg-Saron raised its defenses in time, but this was plasma from the Sun's _core._ It moved at relativistic speeds and was so hot it glowed in the _gamma_ spectrum so as to make it completely invisible to mortals. Yogg-Saron grunted as the four trails of core plasma burned into it, carving through its shadowy barrier and searing lines into both it and Tsa'Thannon's bodies. The moment one of the portals released its burst of plasma it closed and Tsa'Thannon opened another so the four trails continued to snake around them, spewing superheated plasma into the vacuum as Tsa'Thannon's suicidal attack went on and on, carving white-hot trails onto their bodies.

It just couldn't keep up with this sort of punishment, especially not with the beating it had endured already. Gouts of plasma poured upon its tendrils and its true head, flooding the insides of its neck and scorching its internal organs. But it didn't give up. It kept blasting Tsa'Thannon with purple lightning bolts by the thousands, maladies like rain, and forced it to watch every lunatic skull and every subatomic particle of Yogg-Saron's own body as it channeled its own aura. It used its superior strength to twist them around in the void, forcing Tsa'Thannon's pearl-like head into its own streams of plasma before it could redirect them. So it went on for... what could have easily been hours.

And then... the portals started slowing down. The four steadily tracing beams became rapid-fire blasts, then just four streams of plasma at a time. Then three. Then two, then one. And finally, Tsa'Thannon's onslaught stopped entirely.

It hung in Yogg-Saron's grip, shuddering and whispering to itself, even projecting an awful sound that might have been sobbing. It took advantage of the opportunity, closing its tendrils around Tsa'Thannon's head to batter it with everything its muscles could manage. Brilliant purple light engulfed Tsa'Thannon inside and out as Yogg-Saron tried to extinguish its life. It saw the deity's soul in its body, a colossal purple cloud linked to a mangled mind, twitching and resisting feebly. Yogg-Saron wondered if it even understood what was happening anymore.

Slowly, Tsa'Thannon's hearts slowed down. Its black blood stopped flowing. The chemical impulses in its brain died down and its many fanged mouths drifted weakly. Yogg-Saron swam away from the smaller Old God, releasing more and more of its most powerful spells. One by one, it dispelled its own sphere of lunatic skulls. Tsa'Thannon twitched once and twice. An observer on Azeroth with a sufficiently advanced telescope might have seen them, planet-sized specks shadowed by the burning Sun but unaffected by its gravity. One of them was immobile, and the other sluggish. Yogg-Saron healed itself as it continued its onslaught, staring at Tsa'Thannon's body in fear of it renewing its assault. But nothing came.

Eventually, it relaxed its magic and swam closer, poking and prodding Tsa'Thannon even as its empowering shadows finished healing it with impunity. Without an Old God assaulting it, Yogg-Saron's body and mana replenished themselves _very_ quickly. The other deity did nothing.

Tsa'Thannon, Endless Despair, the God of Darkness, was dead.

Sickly green necrotic energy lit up the tips of each of Yogg-Saron's tentacles. It barely even realized what it was doing. Everything felt surreal. Had it... actually just done this? Killed another deity? The most powerful Old God? Its friend? It hadn't been a pleasant death either. It had been horrible, painful, as Tsa'Thannon lost its grip on reality and was forcibly deprived of its will to fight.

The death magic shrouded Tsa'Thannon's body. From its gray body, the god's soul was drawn forth by Yogg-Saron's magic and brought to its body. The shifting, squirming dark violet soul bashed repeatedly into its emerald cocoon. It released shadow bolts and other spells, but there was nothing the soul could do. Yogg-Saron was the God of Death, so now Tsa'Thannon was utterly under its power. The magical prison flared, burning Tsa'Thannon and draining its magic until even the soul was completely pacified.

Yogg-Saron inspected it, barely moving. This was all going too fast. It hadn't decided what to do when it got to this point. There were so many things it could do. Leira would want it to destroy the soul. Erase Tsa'Thannon from existence so it could never hurt anyone ever again, then let the Sun's gravity claim the body and purify it with flame. It could return Tsa’Thannon to its body, it could reshape its thoughts. It was a god, it could do _anything!_

The soul swirled within its magic, undulating back and forth. For a literal week, Yogg-Saron floated in the void, turning over its options, what it wanted to do, what it should do, what would pay off for it in the long run. What it would do to Azeroth. How much it would return the world to how it was. The n'raqi had to go, of course. The qiraji and mantid would have their reproduction rates cut down to mortal levels and the elementals would be banished to their planes. Five new Aspects had to be chosen, mortals had to be liberated... how much of their trauma would it relieve? Maybe bring back the nerubians?

But more immediate was what to do with its fellow god. Yogg-Saron sighed into the void, and made its decision.

* * *

Leira

  


She was in the middle of battle, dueling a felguard one-on-one, and then!

She was in the air. She gasped and fell, dropping to her hands and knees. The air was humid and warm, smelling like something she did not dare grace with a description. It nearly made her retch, the Holy Light within her soul recoiling at the presence of something... horrible.

Leira stood, looking herself over. She was in... regular clothes? A purple shirt and purple pants, with a pair of shoes designed for hooves next to her. They weren't any clothes she owned, but it seemed to be perfectly sized for her and inexplicably comfortable despite the heat. What happened? She'd just been in her armor, leading the charge against the... demons...

Wait no, that wasn't right. That was... that was all a dream! Sara had made her think it was real! The cut on her forehead was gone. But she wasn't atrophied either. Had it been such a short amount of time? Had Sara kept her body healthy? What was going on?

Then her gut dropped. She'd been in the dream. And now... she wasn't.

Leira was on a beach. Before her the land stretched away, covered in gently swaying grass. To her sides, waves lapped at steep, rocky cliffs that had not the slightest bit of sand on them. Gulping, she turned around and instantly regretted it.

There, in all its horror, was the tip of Yogg-Saron's body. A massive brownish-greenish body. She couldn't even see the entire thing. All she could see was one of its tendrils, lying in the ocean and stretching off into the distance, covered in smaller tentacles which were covered in still smaller tentacles and so forth, writhing through the air. Its millions of horrible, gibbering mouths stretched and snapped at the air. There was so much motion it was impossible for her to truly take it all in. Leira's mouth opened in terror. What was it doing? Why had it brought her back? Scenarios raced through her head, each worse than the last. Had Sara finally grown tired of her?

Then the tentacles began to cast magic. Green mist spread across its body, growing like mold from a hundred million spots until the entire Old God was shrouded in swirling energy. Leira backed up cautiously, as if she could protect herself by adding a few more yards between herself and the monster. The magic built higher and higher, roaring like a million storms as it reached its filthy crescendo...

Yogg-Saron vanished. There was no flash of light or blast of noise. There wasn't even any air rushing in to fill the space it had just been, or water to even out the displaced oceans. It was simply... gone, as if had never been there.

The red tint in the skies shimmered and started to change, sliding through yellow and green until it was a simple, ordinary blue sky, dotted with fluffy white clouds. The sun burned in the corner of Leira's eyes, and the White Lady was out early. A gentle breeze caressed her face, blowing away the stench of evil and madness to replace it with sea salt.

Yogg-Saron had... left?

Leira turned around and inspected the area around her. She hadn't noticed it earlier, but her armor and weapons were here too. There was also a leather sack so large she could fit dwarf inside. She approached it, opened its flap, and stared in. Her eyes bugged out. It was _much_ larger on the inside, to the extent that if she could open its flap large enough, Leira could literally fit a house inside. The sack was stored with all manner of water and nonperishable food, potions and bedrolls, everything she could possibly need to live on her own for a long time.

She got to work. She put on her armor, hoisted the sack onto her back, and sheathed her weapons. She didn't recognize any landmarks. She didn't recognize anything. But Leira _did_ see some smoke pouring into the sky, off in the distance. Judging by the distance it'd be a week on hoof to get there, but with the magical bag she wasn't going to starve.

This all felt like a dream. Futilely battling a god, the _actual_ dream where the Alliance started to push back the demons, and now coming back to Azeroth only for Yogg-Saron to give her what she could only call a _farewell gift,_ as if that could possibly make up for what she _knew_ it had been doing while she slumbered. Leira didn't know what Azeroth was like. She didn't know how much had changed, how much had stayed the same, and how many of the changes had been reverted.

But smoke meant civilization, and if Leira still meant anything to Sara she wouldn't have dropped her off at a hostile camp. In fact, they might need her _help_ to recover from what the Old God of Death had subjected them to. Had her words eventually gotten through to it? Had Sara suffered a crisis of conscience? Either way, she had work to do. A Warrior of the Alliance's work was never done.

Steeling her nerves, Leira walked into the new world.


	39. Chapter 38: Death of a Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Derestrasz

He sighed, curling up in his cave with a grumble. No, not comfortable. He continued tossing and turning, flicking his wings and scraping his tail-club on the ground. Eventually, Derestrasz ended up on his stomach, facing the exit of his home. It was dour and gray, drizzling rain onto the mountains. The sound was a soothing, gentle trickle that had never failed to lull him to sleep before the Lost Year had happened. But the Lost Year had happened, so Derestrasz just found himself staring out at the rain, letting some of it trickle into his cave for him to drink before it vanished into the depths of the earth. He didn't like sleeping so close to the exit, but he also didn't want to go deeper into the cave and be _trapped._

Derestrasz's stomach rumbled, prompting him to exhale sharply through his nostrils. He needed to eat. He needed to go outside and hunt the strange, but equally precious, lifeforms walking Azeroth. Slay them and offer a prayer of thanks to their spirit, then bring back the meat to his cave and feast like he hadn't feasted in ages. But the thought of going out there, of hurting something, of just _getting up_ made his limbs feel like lead. He'd much rather stay there and tough out his hunger. He could eat later.

The flapping of draconic wings cut through his lazing. He didn't bother raising his head, but he did focus his eyes to see who was coming. His muscles tensed and phantom pains flared to life all across his body. It couldn't be _her_ , could it?

Fortunately, it wasn't. His visitor was a red drake, just like him, instead of a twilight. Her hind claws were latched on to some bizarre animal. She flew into his cave and landed, tossing the dead creature to the side of the cave. She shook herself off and folded her wings. "Brr! So much water," she muttered in Draconic, looking herself up and down.

"Hello," he greeted. "What is that?" he asked, looking at the beast. At first glance it looked like a small brown bear, but instead of fur it was covered in brown tendrils. It had three eyes, and its paws ended in stumps instead of claws.

"No idea!" she said. " _Buuut..._ " she said, glancing at him and narrowing her eyes. "A little birdie told me that you weren't eating. Come on." She nudged the creature at him with her tail-club, letting him see the clean bite marks around its throat. "Eat up."

Derestrasz glanced at the creature, then back at her. "Listen, I appreciate the gesture but I am not hungry," he lied.

The other drake narrowed her eyes. "What kind of an idiot do you think I am?" Sarastrasza asked scathingly. "You haven't moved from that spot since I've last been here!"

"That's not true!" he protested. "I've done stretches."

"Stretches!" she squawked. "You've been drinking from this dinky little... rainwater stream," she said, swiping her claws at the trickle of water running through his cave. "When is the last time you've eaten? Hmm?" He looked away guiltily. "I knew it."

"I just don't have an appetite," he whispered like a scolded whelp. He sighed, but moved towards the creature anyway. "Are you sure it's safe to eat?"

Sarastrasza nodded. "Perfectly safe. Had one myself earlier. _Eat,_ Derestrasz," she commanded.

He grimaced, but pulled himself over to the creature and sniffed. His stomach growled as the scent of fresh, still-warm meat flooded his nostrils. His wings shivered and his forelegs trembled. He dove his snout in and dug in with his fangs, tearing through the tentacle-fur and into the pinkish flesh beneath. It tasted _strange,_ like a gryphon that had been poisoned with mercury, but if Sarastrasza said it was safe then he trusted her. But even beyond that, the warm blood going down his throat and chunks of meat filling his stomach were _heavenly._

By the Titans, when _was_ the last time he'd eaten?

Before long he'd eaten his fill and he pulled away, licking his muzzle clean of blood. There was still a lot of the animal left, but he'd eaten a giant crater into its body. He was warm and full, more so than he could remember ever being. "There you go," Sarastrasza crooned. "You need to take better care of yourself, Derestrasz. When's the last time you went out for a flight and stretched your wings?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I just... don't feel like it," he grumbled, curling up tighter.

For a while, she didn't say anything. Eventually, though, she sighed and padded over to his side and sat on her haunches. "Listen. I know you went through some horrible things while the Old Gods were in charge. I know it's not easy to move past it, and you may never make a full recovery. But you'll never recover at all if you let yourself rot away! I'm not always going to be able to bring you meals, Derestrasz," she whispered.

"You weren't there," he muttered, closing his eyes. "She did so many things to me, to all of us. Everything under the sun and she did it with a smile. And you? You got to hide away with the Bronze and skip ahead to now." He opened his eyes and glared at her, raising his head. "You have _no idea_ what it was like," he hissed, an ember of fury smoldering in his core.

"I know more than you think," Sarastrasza snapped. "Please, just come with me?" she said, extending a foreleg to him and tapping the black claws on the ground. "The new Aspects are being chosen soon, don't you want to vote in that? Or at least _see_ it? This is a once in a lifetime event!"

"No," he said, looking away from her to inspect a _fascinating_ spot of mica on the walls. "Aspects live far more interesting lives than I do. I'll probably outlive them."

"Not if you keep taking care of yourself like _this,_ " she said in disgust, puffing air through her nostrils. "Come on. You're going to go outside and you're going to fly unless you want your _wings_ to rot off," she snapped, walking behind him. Without warning, Sarastrasza bit the midpoint of his tail.

Derestrasz roared and leaped to his paws, which shook as they had to support his full weight. "What the hell was that for?!" he roared.

"You know exactly what it was for," she replied, walking forward and forcing him back. Soon, his tail-club was forced out the entrance to his cave and the cool water began pouring on it. Not long after, Sarastrasza had backed him entirely into the rain.

He froze and looked up, then around. Above him, a smooth sheet of bright white clouds covered the sky, pouring a soothing, cleansing rain onto his scales. The cool water ran down his scarred body, taking with it some of the dirt and grime he'd let build up. Turning his gaze from the skies, Derestrasz took a good look around. The mountains of his home were bare of life this high up but also held no snow, and deep canyons were carved between them. It reminded him of a cooler Storm Peaks. The piles of rock formed wonderful forms as far as his eyes could see, darkened and shined by the rain that formed waterfalls down the slopes.

Derestrasz pivoted around and extended his wings. Immediately their webbing caught a gentle breeze and they snapped open to their full span, just in time for Sarastrasza to walk next to him. "See?" she asked. "You're looking better already."

He turned around, his blood racing with the desire to get out there and _fly._ But... something heavy clenched around his heart like cement. He sighed, relaxing his wings. "Maybe... maybe tomorrow. I still need to digest all that food, you know," he tried to explain.

Sarastrasza stared at him sadly, slit pupils going wide. "Derestrasz, please. I know you don't want to, but it'd... ah, nevermind." She shook her head and smiled at him, showing off her rows of fangs. "At least I got you out here. It's progress, right? Anyway, I just thought I'd check up on you, alright? Please, try to work on it even if I'm not here. You have a lot of people who care about you out there," she offered, extending her own wings and leaping. Sarastrasza caught the air and flew away.

Derestrasz sighed and started to turn around, but before he could Sarastrasza returned, beating her wings to hover in one spot. "Also... I know this might not sound reassuring, but I spoke with Turliona yesterday." Derestrasz's heart froze. She spoke with _Turliona?_ "She feels _really_ bad about what she did to you, you know. I know it'd be hard, but trust me when I say it'd do you both a lot of good to meet up and talk. Get some closure, even if you don't forgive her. You don't have to do it now but please, just think about it," she said. Then she swiveled around in the air and took off, this time leaving for real.

The red drake sighed and padded back into his den, shaking the water from his body. Turliona. Sarastrasza wanted him to meet _her,_ the centerpiece of his nightmares. Bile rose in his throat at the mere thought of being anywhere near her. But Sarastrasza had supported him all the way ever since they'd met after the Lost Year. She only wanted what was best for him, maybe Derestrasz could trust her?

He didn't know. The dull weight on his heart still made any action at all excruciating. He barely had the strength to drag himself out of the rain before collapsing to the ground, closing his eyes to go to sleep. He'd need a _lot_ of pushing to go meet up with the twilight drake that had tortured, exploited and abused him in all manner of ways for the Lost Year. It didn't matter she'd been corrupted. It had still happened and things would never, ever be the same. Still... maybe tomorrow he'd go for a flight. He'd ached for that freedom while imprisoned under the Old Gods' rule, maybe it was time to take advantage of that freedom.

Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe.

* * *

Sarastrasza

The strangest part was being able to use nature magic.

Compared to going from a human body to an Old God, creating a flesh-and-blood red drake and taking control of it had taken no adjustment at all. Claws, wings, and all that? Easy. She'd even indulged in a storm drake body a few times while in power, so she had practice. But this wasn't an avatar made to look like a red drake, it truly _was_ one and with that came control over nature magic.

Which was quite comfortable and warm now that it didn't make her want to vomit.

Sarastrasza soared high in the sky, staring down at Azeroth. The planet was locked into how it'd been when she'd retreated her body into a deep plane. There were small islands scattered around most of the sea, but there were three main continents. Unlike Northrend, Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, which were on opposite sides of the planet due to the Well of Eternity's rupturing, _these_ continents were right next to each other, with only a few rivers and lakes keeping them from forming Pangaea on the equator.

Already, regular weather patterns were beginning to carve out their place. Rocky cliffs were crumbling into beaches. Forests in the wrong places were dying out, and animals migrated to where the ideal temperatures were. Tall mountains were slowly being snowed in, and short ones were thawing. It had only been a few months since the 'Lost Year' ended, and already the planet was stabilizing its new conditions. It made her sick, but the weather wasn't this new world's charm.

New towns were being set up. It was too early for any legitimate cities, but small constructions were already dotting the land, clustering around the rivers. She flew lower to inspect the closest one. The hamlet had barely a dozen buildings, and a whole lot of tents to live in. There was a firepit in the middle, currently empty and smoking. Fields of corn and carrots grew in the surrounding land, and pastures held cows and a few strange beasts that she and Tsa'Thannon had created during their rule.

Sarastrasza eyed a field of wheat and flew lower, gathering fire in her gut. Magical lines flared to life in her mind, coiling and growing about from a central nexus in her mind's eye. As she swooped above the wheat, she breathed out a steady stream of fire upon it. The flames boiled away into nothingness as they came out, and the magic held within seeped into the plants and vitalized them. Behind Sarastrasza, the wheat grew to twice its previous size as she flew. She turned around in the air and came by for a second pass, then a third, breathing more and more fire onto the fields until every plant had been touched.

Her antics had drawn a crowd from the village. There was a good mix of races. Humans, goblins, pandaren, tauren, even a few nerubians. There were children huddled around the adults' legs, but there wasn't anybody exceptionally old in the crowd. More than a few of them were missing a limb. Sarastrasza approached them and touched down, seamlessly shifting into the form of Sara. "Greetings," she said to them.

An orcish man stepped forward. "Greetings, great dragon," he said, bowing. "You have our thanks for your aid with our crops."

She waved it aside. "Think nothing of it. I was actually wondering if you could help me. You see, I'm looking for someone," she explained.

The crowd pushed around, and eventually the nerubian came forward. Sara bit down a surge of anger. The nerubians. The spider-people who thought they were _too good_ to worship the Old Gods, that thought they, as a culture, had 'evolved beyond such demeaning practices'. Still, Sara was a remarkable actress. She smiled at the spider as he approached her. "Who are you looking for?" he asked, clicking his mandibles and staring down at her with his eight eyes.

"A draenei woman," she said, staring at him fearlessly. "By the name of Leira. Last I heard she was around this half of the continent, but I haven't been able to find her." Which was true. She had assumed Leira would stay at the closest village, but she wasn't there. She'd either taken up the nomad life, or had wandered a few weeks before settling down. Which was fine by Sara, it made for a wonderful surprise. Her life was full of those these days: she'd been _so sure_ she could get Derestrasz to go flying, but no such luck.

The nerubian turned his head sideways and clicked his inner mandibles. "Leira, the blacksmith? Why, is she in danger?"

"Oh I hope not," she said, eyes widening. "But we knew each other before the Lost Year, and I was hoping to catch up with her," she explained.

"Hmm," he said, scratching the back of his head with one of four hands. "In return for this bountiful harvest you have brought us, it is more than suitable to give this. Leira is in Cindertin village. By flight, it should be roughly a half day's trip to the northeast."

"Half day, northeast, Cindertin." Apparently Leira worked as a blacksmith these days. Sara shifted back into Sarastrasza and dipped her head respectfully. "You have my thanks. Farewell." She unfurled her wings and took off into the sky, grinning through her fangs at the rush of thermals beneath her. It was going to take a _long_ time for her to tire of flying, that was certain.

As Sarastrasza flew, her thoughts began to wander to Azeroth. The planet was bouncing back... surprisingly quickly, she had to be honest. The lifeforms she and Tsa'Thannon had created found their own places in the ecosystem; they either joined it, or died out with no Old Gods to support them.

Villages sprouted up left and right as the liberated mortals of the world, with most of their trauma relieved, got together so they could scream their nightmares together.

The dragons had taken Dragonfall Temple, cleansed it, and reoriented it on the ground. The election of five new Aspects would be taking place soon, with the five Aspect Hearts that she'd taken the liberty of creating before leaving Azeroth. One for each of the five original flights. The fifth would probably end up going to the uncorrupted Twilights; Wrathion was still the only black dragon, the netherwing were stuck on Outland, and both the stormdrakes and stonedrakes weren't technically dragons. Her guess was that Oediona would be the Twilight Aspect.

The mantid and qiraji, stripped of their power and with their reproductive rates crippled, had retreated to the northern edge of the most northern continent to work among themselves. She couldn't wait to see how long it would be before they waged war on the rest of the world again.

The new world was still young, and things were still shaking themselves down. Everything was different, from the landmasses to the relative populations to the biosphere. Out with the old and in with the new. New factions, new faction leaders. New elemental lords, new cities and wars, new Aspects, new races and new landmasses.

Interestingly, those dragons that had escaped into the Caverns of Time reemerged _now._ The Bronze knew. They knew she would take over as an Old God, and they knew she'd eventually relinquish her hold. They came forward into a future where Azeroth was, for the first time in ten thousand years, safe. Nations would splinter and war, but as far as existential threats went? No Old Gods threatening to burst through the crust and no Burning Legion to rain fire from the heavens. The dragons had come and spread across the world, free of trauma and with their memories intact. Clever little lizards.

All around Sarastrasza, stormclouds reached into the air. Their enormous anvil shapes turned blurry underneath as they poured rain, occasionally lighting up with electricity. Behind one, the sun set and cast its flame upon the sky. Smaller cumulus clouds peppered the space between the storms marching upon the land. The continent stretched further on, eventually terminating in cliffs that overlooked the sparkling seas. The seas where the murlocs would be doing all _kinds_ of interesting work. She could see so many details. Dragon vision wasn't as good as Old God vision, but it was a step up from human.

She found herself thinking. She did a lot of that these days. Derestrasz was... interesting. Before she became Yogg-Saron, before she even knew _what_ she was, he had saved her. He repaid his debt for knocking her out of the sky, and saved her from a doom curse. Of course he'd been annoying as all hell. Preaching about how 'wrong' what she did was, trying to 'save her soul' from her Old God magic. She didn't care much for him; hell, she'd killed him as Yogg-Saron and brought him back to suffer.

But 'Sarastrasza' was a kind and gentle red drake, charged with protecting life. Irony aside, it was exciting to act so contrary. And she supposed she _did_ owe him at least a _little_ therapy for saving her life. Maybe get him and Turliona to be friends down the line.

Sarastrasza was torn from her musing by a village far beneath her. How long had it been? That must've been Cindertin! Night had fallen and stars were out in abundance, but light still shone from the collection of buildings. She angled her wings and curled her tail to start her descent. She glided lower and lower until the grass tickled her scaly underbelly, and landed gracefully outside the village borders. Smoothly shifting into Sara, she began walking towards Cindertin.

The origin of Cindertin's name was obvious: it was close to a volcano. It had gone extinct since the earth and fire elementals were returned to their planes, but it had been a volcano nonetheless. If Sara remembered right, there'd been veins of - go figure - tin running through it at the time she stopped Azeroth's upheaval.

Like the other villages, it wasn't too big. A few houses, but mostly tents. Though Sara _did_ notice a tall building of stone, with spires and windows. A cathedral. Not as ornate as the ones in the old world, there was no stained glass for instance, but it was definitely something. There was also a building of metal, outside of which hung a sign proclaiming it as the local forge.

Sara made her way towards it, weaving in between the few locals out at night. They gave her cursory glances, but nobody paid much attention to her. Drifters must have come in and out all the time, though in her brown shirt and dress Sara would appear well off. She went to the forge and knocked on the metal door. Nothing. She knocked again. Still nothing. She tried to open it... and it was locked.

Hmm.

Fortunately for her, one of the townsfolk noticed her troubles. A pandaren woman tapped her on the shoulder and Sara whirled around to face the short little thing.

"Looking for Leira, miss dragon?"

Well, at least she wasn't perceptive enough to know what she _truly_ was. "Yes, I am. She and I are old friends, but we got separated during the Lost Year. Would you be so kind as to direct me to her?"

The pandaren's eyes narrowed. "Why would you want to - " She took a deep breath and calmed herself. "Sorry, sorry. She's right over there," she explained, pointing off into the east. "Third tent from the left."

"Thank you very much," she said, turning away and heading in the direction she'd been given. Her eyes focused on the third tent from the left, and anxiety began to pool in her stomach. What would Leira think of her? What could Sara say? Leira hadn't exactly been happy with her when they'd last met, but surely a few months was enough time to calm down, right?

Leira's tent was small and simple. It was made of cowhide, treated and cured. The entrance was closed, so Sara knocked on the flap, hoping Leira wasn't yet asleep. If the light coming from within, and the silhouette of a draenei sitting and reading was any indication, she wasn't.

As she knocked, the figure inside shuffled around and stood. "Coming!" Sara's heart skipped a beat. That was definitely Leira's voice. What was she going to say? What _could_ she say? All of the planning she'd done over the past few months flew out of her head and she stood paralyzed with fear.

The flap opened and Leira stuck out her head, smiling. "Hi, who is - " Her glowing eyes widened and her smile flatlined. " - it?"

Sara's legs felt weak. "Hey," she whispered. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," Leira said, stepping aside. "Come in." Sara stepped forward and ducked her head in, closing the flap behind her. Leira's tent was cozy. A bedroll on the floor, a few sheets of paper covered in scribbled stories since few books had survived the Lost Year. Leira was in a white nightgown, but she noticed the purple clothing Sara had given her folded in the corner, and the larger-on-the-inside bag laying on its side.

"You know, that _was_ intended to be lived in if you needed," she mentioned.

"I didn't want to live in a bag." Leira turned around to face her, crossing her arms. "How are you even here? I saw you vanish."

"I banished my body," she explained. "Put it in a lower plane of existence. No native matter or energy, no quantum effects either, so I'm literally going to live forever. I'm actually asleep right now, but I created this body and even asleep I have enough consciousness to pilot it. It'd be braindead otherwise." She shrugged. "I figure I'll use this body until it eventually dies, then make a new one. I'm thinking tauren. Then I'll keep going and... well, eventually heat death's going to happen. Once that happens I'll just probably end up looping my memories, start to finish, until the end of time."

"You've thought a lot about this." Leira's unflinching gaze was... rather unnerving.

"It's good to have a plan sooner rather than later," she admitted.

Leira sighed. "Alright Sara, cut the crap. Why are you here?"

"I wanted to see you," she said, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. "I hadn't in a few months, and I wanted to make sure you were alright."

"Alright." Leira sat down on her bedroll, and Sara followed by sitting on the leather floor. "You wanted to know if _I_ was alright? Not the thousands of people who're scared of the dark, who can't look at rocks or tunnels, all of the traumatized people. No, you're worried about me. You know, for a chaos god you haven't changed much," she spat, glaring at Sara.

_Oh, she's still angry._ "Leira, please. I know you're not happy about what I did, but I fixed it, didn't I?" She gestured behind her, and started listing things on her fingers. "I killed the other Old God, I put away the elementals, wiped out the faceless, and broke the mantid and qiraji's power. I uncorrupted the twilight dragons, I created Aspect Hearts, I undid most of the trauma, and I banished my body. Doesn't that count for something?" she pleaded.

"Count for something?" Leira asked, clenching her fists. Her face turned a deeper shade of blue. "Count for something?! You don't get it! You _destroyed_ the world! You mind controlled me and threw me into Outland against my will! If I hadn't come back you'd have swept up my parents in what you did! And even though I did come back, you threw them into Outland instead! You didn't care enough to put them in the pocket-whatever you kept me in! _I'm never going to see them again because of you!_ "

Sara frowned, shuffling back under Leira's anger. "I'm never going to see _my_ folks again either, you know," she mentioned.

"That was YOUR choice to make!" Leira shouted. "You had no right to make my choice for me! But forget about my parents, how about everyone else?! All of my friends from the Chimes are DEAD because of you!" she accused, openly screaming now. Sara hoped they weren't attracting any attention. "All those people out there are scarred for life because of you! You could've fixed them completely! You could've made everything just the way it was! Put back the continents, raise the cities back up and undo all of the trauma! But you didn't! You didn't stop ruling Azeroth because you felt bad! You stopped because you were _bored!_ Because this is _fun_ for you! You're the worst person I've ever met!" she roared, towering over Sara and pointing at her accusingly.

But the draenei wasn't done yet. "And now you think you can just, just waltz back in here, after you forced me to go around as the one sane woman in a ruined world, and say 'Hey I missed you'?! Think that I'll forget everything you did just because we used to be friends?! No, you don't get to do that! And the worst part? I can't even DO anything about it! Nobody can! You're going to get away with this, you're not going to be punished for what you did!"

Sara flinched away and closed her eyes. "Leira," she pleaded.

The warrior took a deep breath and sat, wiping her forehead. "Just go," she muttered, resting her head in her hands and glaring up at her. "I've said what I have to say. Just get out of my sight before I do something I'm going to regret," she said coldly.

She swallowed hard. She knew there was a chance this would happen, that Leira wouldn't forgive her and wouldn't accept being friends with her again, but to hear how angry Leira was hurt her. Like a zombie, Sara pulled herself onto both feet. "I, I understand," she croaked. "I'll just go." She approached the tent flap and grabbed it, but paused. She turned her head to look at Leira. "I... I hope you have a long and happy life, Leira," she said, shaking and forcing back tears. With that she turned away and lowered her head. "Goodbye."

Sara pushed her way out, stumbled, and ran. As she ran she fell to all fours, changed back into a dragon, and leaped into the air. She beat her wings as hard as she could and soared out of the sleepy village, desperate to put as much distance between it and herself as possible.

Idiot. She was such an idiot. What had she been expecting? Leira'd been furious when Yogg-Saron had first risen, _before_ the Old God had done the things it did. Why did Sarastrasza think she'd be any more forgiving after the fact? Sure there was the idea that time healed all wounds but... that didn't seem to be the case.

She'd always known this was a possibility, but she didn't want to admit it. Her visit to Leira was so much shorter and so much worse than she'd hoped, and now she wasn't ever going to see her again. The three mortals she'd ever cared about were no longer part of her life.

Well... fine! It was fine. Everything was fine. Sara may have grown up with Leira, and Yogg-Saron may have had residual attachment to her, but that was fine! Sarastrasza the red drake had never known Leira, right? No reason to be attached. No reason to be upset. No reason for drops of water to fall from the sky from her face, no reason for her lungs to be tight.

She... she needed to get back to her cave.

She flew off into the night sky, heading north for where she made her home. She needed to distract herself. She had whole lives ahead of her, after all. Look to the future. New friends and all that. They'd probably just be acts, but she was using an organic brain. Surely, she'd form an attachment to _some_ of them. And there was still...

Ah, nevermind.

Sarastrasza flew off into the new world, determined not to look over her shoulder.


	40. Epilogue: Outside the Cycle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

A Few Years Later…

Nathaniel Havenshrine

Nathan hummed to himself and walked out of school, skipping as he did. School was over! School was over! He could go and play with his toys!

With his backpack secure, he ran across the village, darting between the legs of grown-ups, until he spotted his house. It was a little... small, he thought. One story, made of stones pieced together with mortar. But he liked it! He had his own room and everything, with some books that were trasc... scrip... written based on the ones from before the Lost Year. Mom and Dad didn't like to talk about the Lost Year though, said he was too young to hear about it. Hmmph!

He ran inside, wiping his shoes as he did. "Mom! Dad! I'm home!" The inside had unpainted walls, but there were windows to let in the light and unlit candles for nighttime. He flung off his pack and slung it against the wall. He'd pick it up later.

Mom's voice sounded out from the right, from within the kitchen. "Your dad's out in the fields, honey! Come inside, lunch is ready!"

"Ooh!" he cooed, running through the doorway. There was Mom, with her hair tied up in a bun as she went around their wooden table, setting out plates filled with steamed carrots, rice, and broccoli. Yum! And it was different from yesterday's lunch of chicken soup, too! He took a seat and started eating, digging into his plate as fast as he could. After all, he had games to play!

Apparently, Mom noticed. "Nathan, slow down. You'll choke," she chided. Funnily, her face turned a little lighter when she said 'choke', like she was scared of something. Which was silly, it was just a word!

Still, he listened. "Yes Mom," he said, slowing down his eating. Soon, he was done and he pushed his plate away dramatically so she'd _notice_ he was full. "Alright, I'm done! Can I go play in the woods?"

"You can go, just be back before supper, you hear?"

"I hear," he agreed, getting out of his chair. He ran, getting out of his house in no time!

His town, Goldenrod, was next to a deep and dark forest. A lot of grown-ups, from gnomes to nerubians, wandered about, doing grown-up things that Nathan didn't really care about. Farms grew all around them, stretching into the horizon where he heard there were _other towns_. When he grew up, he was going to go exploring and find ALL of them! And what better way to practice than by exploring the forest next to his house?

With his shorts, shoes and shirt on, Nathan clambered into the trees. He pushed aside branches and leaped over rocks, smiling. The sun shone through the treetops in a thousand shifting beams of light, lightly kissing his skin. He didn't like it. He never _had_ liked the sun, for some reason.

Eventually, Nathan arrived in a more open area. It wasn't really a clearing, but it was big enough for him to stretch his arms out _aaaall_ the way without touching anything. If he was there, he might as well practice.

Nathan froze and held out his hands, concentrating. Soon, black smoke began to flicker in the palms of his hands. Green and purple circles pulsated around the smoke, growing larger and larger until two orbs of black energy swirled around his fingers. "Alright, how did it go?" he asked himself, looking from one hand to the other. He imagined giving the energy in his hands orders, weaving a spiderweb for it to obey. And obey it did. The tug on his arms vanished and the energy condensed into two purple balls that fit in his hands. They were solid to the touch.

He giggled. He did it! Could he juggle them?

Nathan tossed one of the purple orbs into the air and caught it. Eventually he tossed both at once and caught them in the same hand. Then the opposite hand. He dropped them a few times, and whenever he did the grass smoked and died under the balls, but he quickly picked them back up like nothing had happened. Soon, Nathan was juggling the two of them well, throwing the balls up into the air with one hand, catching them with the other, and repeating the process. Ha! He was awesome!

And then the seven year old got bored.

He 'told' the magic balls to vanish, and they _popped_ like firecrackers, turning the grass around them yellow. He also got a face full of black smoke, but he just waved it away. It smelled like something burning and he _loved it._

Nathan crouched to the ground, looking for any toys. Eventually he found a few ants hiding in the grass and focused his powers on them. They started dancing around, twitching and spinning on their backs. Eventually, though, they slowed down and stopped. He frowned as they died, but oh well. Ants never lasted long anyway. A shame there weren't any chipmunks or boabears around. _Those_ lasted a while.

He liked this. Out in the forests, with nobody to see his powers. He could practice, he could kill things, he could juggle and - fireworks!

Nathan gasped. He'd almost forgotten to make fireworks!

He snapped out his hands and covered them in his black/purple/green smoke. Concentrating, he pointed at a stone and ordered his powers to do what he wanted. And true to his word, an explosion of lavender sparks _burst_ from the rock, soaring into the air before fading away. He giggled, and pointed at a patch of moss. The same explosion came from it, turning the moss brown. He kept pointing, summoning up small bursts of light and sound and dying plants. His breaths started to come a little harder, but he wasn't too tired yet! Nathan could keep this up for a whi -

"Enjoying yourself?" a woman's voice with a growling undertone asked.

"AH!" he shouted, instantly extinguishing his powers. He whipped around and stuck his hands behind his back, glaring angrily. Who snuck up on him?! He was supposed to be alone! Then he saw who it was and frowned. "Oh, um hi!" he greeted the red drake. Nathan was in awe; he'd never seen a _dragon_ before, only in books. She sat on a boulder, looking down at him with a crooked smile on her long, fanged mouth. Her wings were tucked in close, probably so they wouldn't tangle in the branches, and her tail slowly swayed behind her. It always struck him as odd that dragons didn't wear clothing though; wasn't she cold?

"What are you doing here?" he asked, pretending to be nice. Maybe if he was nice he could get this stupid-head lizard to go away.

"Oh, just looking around," she said, getting up and prowling towards him. She inspected the area, taking in the dead plants Nathan had caused.

He gulped. He'd learned in school that red dragons really liked keeping things alive. Did that mean... "Am I in trouble?" he asked.

She laughed, closing her eyes. Nathan growled at her. Was she _laughing at him?_ Eventually she calmed down and waved it off with a paw. "Oh, no no, don't worry. Though... if someone else stumbled on this they might end up asking some questions. Hang on, this'll just take a minute." The drake took a deep breath, and Nathan backed off. Once her underbelly scales stopped expanding with the intake of air, she exhaled a river of blistering, burning flame. He screamed and ducked away as the fire curled through the air, seeking out the plants he'd killed and washing over them. He'd expected them to burn, but instead the little clearing looked good as new.

He felt like he was going to puke, though.

Apparently the drake noticed his discomfort. "Yes, I imagine it _would_ feel uncomfortable. Anyway, what's your name? I'm Sarastrasza," she said, gesturing to herself.

Nathan frowned, but swallowed his lunch back down. "Mom and Dad told me not to talk with strangers."

"Your Mom and Dad are very smart," she said. "But I'm not a stranger. We've known each other for a while, even if you don't remember."

He narrowed his eyes. Okay, red dragons were supposed to be goody two-shoes but this sounded bad. He got up. "I need to go," he said, turning around.

"I know how you feel about everyone outside your parents," she said, stopping him in his tracks. "Bunch of stupid-heads, right? You come out here because you can find all sorts of animals to play with, make them do what you want and kill them when you're done."

He turned around and gulped. "A-Am I in trouble?" he repeated with a squeak.

Sarastrasza shook her head and approached him. As she did she warped, changing and compressing until she was a grown-up woman with brown hair and eyes, and a brown shirt and red skirt. "I told you, no. I used to do those things too!" She shrugged. "Well, I didn't know I was _killing_ things until much later," she admitted. "Anyway, I came here because I wanted to give you something! Then I'll be out of your hair." She held out her hands and, with a flash of fire and cinders, a thick book appeared in her hands. "Do you know how to read?"

"A little," he said.

"Well, that's fine," Sarastrasza conceded. "You'll learn more eventually. Anyway, I made this book. Just for you! It'll teach you all about how to use your powers. Your _magic,_ " she said, stressing the last word.

Nathan gasped. "It's called magic? But I thought magic made stuff like fireballs or ice."

"That's fire and frost magic," she said. "You have _shadow_ magic, just like I have both fire and nature magic. Here, take it," she said, holding the book out to him.

He looked at her nervously, but what could a _book_ do to hurt him? Nathan walked towards her and grabbed the book from her hands. "Oof!" he grunted.

"Careful, it's heavy," she said with a smile. Nathan sat down and flipped it open. He gaped. There were so many words, but there were _pictures_ too! Colored pictures, even! He didn't know many of the words, though. "Take it home and give it a look. Try to keep it our secret, though. Even if you don't understand most of it now, I promise you that you'll understand it later." Sarastrasza shifted and warped, transforming back into a dragon. She was _enormous,_ towering over him even though she was on all fours. She could reach her head out and bite his arm off before Nathan had a chance to do anything.

"Um," he said, looking at the book. New ways to make fireworks? New things to do? New ways to make animals dance? "What do I do now?"

"Hmm," the drake said, looking around. "Well, I'd like to see you again. How about... I swing by on the Feast of Winter Veil?"

"Alright!" he said. "But how do you know me?" he asked. "You still haven't told me!"

Sarastrasza chuckled. "No, I did not. I'll tell you when you're older." He glared at her. 'When you're older'? "I know, I know. I hated it whenever I was told that, too. But if I told you now, it wouldn't mean anything. There's a lot of things you need to learn first before you can understand it, and it's getting dark." Was it? Nathan looked around. It was still pretty bright, but the sun was starting to set and he had a long way to go back. "And besides, I have to meet up with a few of my friends in a bit and it's a long flight." She turned around and hopped to the same boulder she'd been sitting on, her spiked tail-club waving through the air. She winked a slit-pupiled eye at him. "See you around, Nathan," she said, before running into the woods far too fast for him to _ever_ catch up.

Once the dragon was gone, Nathan looked down at the heavy book in his hands. He smiled. New ways to make fireworks? Everyone at school would be so _jealous!_ He'd show her. He'd learn _everything_ in this book before he even turned ten! Nathan turned around and started marching for home.

It was pretty nice of her to give this to him. Still, he was confused by how she said they knew each other. He'd remember meeting a giant dragon. Or maybe it was when he was a baby? No, he'd definitely still remember. But scary claws and 'when you're older' aside, she was nice. He really liked her! Maybe she wasn't a stupid-head.

Nathan found himself looking forward to seeing Sarastrasza again. Who knew the things she could teach him?

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you've all enjoyed. Once more if you have, please do leave a comment.

**Author's Note:**

> Please do leave a comment, let me know what you think.


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